The PNV amends Ribera in the duel between Iberdrola and Repsol and aligns itself with Imaz: "We must not divert the focus. This is about joining forces"

Paula María Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, March 21, 2024-02:01

The

PNV yesterday amended the position of Teresa Ribera

24 hours after the Minister for the Ecological Transition took sides with Iberdrola in its fight against Repsol, a company that the leading Spanish electricity company has sued for alleged "unfair competition" and "ecopostureo" .

At the WindEurope wind sector congress that Bilbao is hosting this week, the Minister of Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment,

Arantxa Tapia

, asserted: "Governments and companies that are capable of correctly responding to this energy-climate challenge They will gain legitimacy.

Let's not entertain ourselves by putting the focus where it doesn't belong

.

Despite its subtlety, Tapia's words did not go unnoticed by an auditorium full of heavyweights in the green business.

A good part of the arguments with which the group chaired by

Ignacio Galán

has attacked Repsol in court are based on the alleged ecological laundering of its advertising and, especially, its campaigns on biofuels, the commitment of Repsol and other oil companies to decarbonize transportation as a more immediate alternative to the electric vehicle, which is the solution that Iberdrola defends.

«This is about joining efforts.

This is about global solutions that are at the same time adapted to our specific reality.

A planned transition that allows us to look for solutions, which will sometimes be transitory," emphasized Tapia, whose approaches fit better in Repsol's cult of technological neutrality than in Iberdrola's creed of electrification.

Ribera, for her part, responded to the media that questioned her about the tweet with which the day before she celebrated that the "fatigue over greenwashing

"

had reached the courts.

"I am absolutely neutral but I know where I am, on the side of a green agenda that cannot lead to confusion," the vice president stood out at the Bilbao congress, where she greeted the CEO of Iberdrola Spain, Mario

Ruiz-Tagle

, with equal enthusiasm.

than to the general director of Low Carbon Generation at Repsol,

João Costeira

.

The ties that unite the Basque party with both companies are equally strong.

If the Iberdrola tower in Bilbao, the electric company's corporate headquarters, is an emblem of Basque business power, the Muskiz refinery (Vizcaya), which Repsol manages through its subsidiary Petronor, is a symbol of regional industrial splendor.

While Iberdrola purchases

1.7 billion euros

from suppliers in the region, Repsol has more than 1,000 people on staff at Petronor, generates

6,200 indirect jobs

and accounts for 40% of the traffic in the port of Bilbao.

Sources close to the confrontation frame Tapia's speech in an attempt to "contain damage" by the party and assure that the formation led by Andoni Ortuzar always tries to maintain a "domestic equidistance."

But, this time, the balance of the PNV has tilted towards the oil company, partly due to the industrial vocation to which Tapia alluded, but also due to its determination to reactivate Petronor investments that Imaz put on standby in response to fiscal pressure. of the Government of Pedro Sánchez.