Every day they consult the gas prices, fired consecutively, and at the same time, the current account, in case the central government had processed the aid that it announced in March within the National Plan in response to the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine. But these do not arrive.
This is how the ceramic sector explains it, with the employers’ association ASCER at the helm, which since last Friday – the expiration date of the term given by the Government – denounces that the economic lifeline promised by the Spanish Executive has not yet reached gas-intensive companies such as yours.
The same Executive, in a note from the Ministry of Finance, had assured that the estimated date for making the payments or the request for information (in those cases where appropriate), was before June 3. That is why the sector waited until last Friday in case ‘the miracle’ occurred.
However, the Government has already warned that once this date has passed, as it has been, the State Tax Administration Agency would continue with the management of the aid that could be pending, making the necessary payments and actions. When? For companies it should be already.
From ASCER they confirm that, for the moment, only a couple of companies have received the aid, which can be up to 400,000 euros. “There is some nervousness in the sector, we see how the months go by without really implementing support measures for the affected economic sectors. The evolution of gas prices continues at very high levels and the prospects are not for improvement,” Alberto Echavarría, general secretary of ASCER, pointed out on Friday.
“Despite the fact that the Ministry has conveyed to us the intention of resolving all the files these days, it is unfortunate that some urgent aid for the industry continues to not arrive more than two months after being approved, Echavarría considers.
Although the announcement of the aid was well received, from the sector they remember that independent atomizers were left out “-the most intensive ceramic companies in gas consumption”, they qualify-, and that generated “a distortion” within the sector, since that the atomizers integrated in ceramic companies could access the aid.
They also point out that the enamel industry was not included in the aid either. Thus, ASCER transferred this problem to the Ministry of Industry and the Generalitat Valenciana, which with the ReActiva plan tried to amend this fact.
For this reason, in the Valencian climate emergency response program there is a budgeted item of 50 million euros to complement the aid to those companies that were not included in the Royal Decree and differentiated “two aid scheme scenarios: all consumers gas and the most intensive. ASCER also warns that these “will take time to arrive” and from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Model, in charge of processing them, they assure that the time frame is being defined, so the forecast is that “they will not take long to be approved”.
Already in the presentation of ReActiva, which was at the beginning of April, the general secretary of UGT-PV, Ismael Sáez, focused on the pressing need that the ceramic sector had with about thirty companies with current ERTEs and many others that they were going to start establishing vacation weeks “to anticipate problems”.
In the month of March, of the associated companies in ASCER, a total of 19 registered temporary employment regulation files. A considerable increase that had already begun in January 2022, when there were five companies that requested it.
The peak occurred in March, but others have been added later: five in April and another three in May. For this reason, they insist from the sector, aid is needed as soon as possible.
