silver bridge Pedro Sánchez’s decision to place the vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, as the head of the list for the Europeans, has been very well received by businessmen in the sector. ” The farther the better”. Her departure opens a door to rebalance the relationships between environmentalism and economic pragmatism.
Spain is not going to save the world, but it can be left out of the digital technological revolution underway. Greater ministerial coordination and a better climate between the Administration and the private sector are missing. In fact, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Energy have traditionally been together, given that one without the other does not function correctly. This traditional balance was broken with the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to power and the progressive coalition government. The parties to the left of the PSOE, Podemos, Sumar, Bildu or ERC, demanded that ecology and the fight against climate change be given priority over industry. A demand that was already going well for the socialists given the President of the Government’s interest in ideologically enriching the so-called new social democracy. There is an indisputable consensus that one of the world’s main problems is global warming and that urgent measures must be taken to stop it.
This explains why priority was given to the Ecological Transition, leaving the industry in the background. Thus a ministry with the rank of vice president was created. A portfolio with a lot of political weight run by a renowned environmentalist. At the same time, Industry was split up and remained as a second division portfolio in charge of people with no political weight, taking away even the Secretary of State. As it could not be otherwise, this approach ended up confronting the Minister of Ecological Transition with all the businessmen in the sector and a good part of the Ibex 35. The decision to create a special tax arguing that they obtained extraordinary benefits as a consequence of the inflationary shock was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And this occurred precisely when it is more necessary than ever for the private sector to undertake heavy investments to “scrap” traditional energy, such as gas pipelines, combined cycle plants… for clean generation systems. A legal uncertainty that made the energy transition difficult.
Parallel to the tension generated in the energy sector, there has been an obsolescence of electrical networks. It’s like a suit that has outgrown a teenager who grows up and becomes a man. This lack of foresight has produced a bottleneck for the development of industry 4.0. The electric car, artificial intelligence, battery factories, data storage centers… consume a lot of energy. Experts assure that investments in networks should be tripled to anticipate the future that is already upon us during the regulatory period that begins. Without forgetting that opportunities are being lost with electricity that sometimes has zero cost, although the industry continues to pay more for it than its competitors.
It has been the President of the Government himself who has assumed that this lack of pragmatism and coordination between Industry and Energy is beginning to be a problem in the short and medium term. The first step was to commission a conciliatory politician, with experience and influence like Jordi Hereu, to promote the industry. After the European elections there will be a cabinet reshuffle and there is the option of adding portfolios.
