The statements made to this newspaper by Carlos Tavares, CEO of the largest manufacturer and leader in vehicle sales in the Spanish market, are not usual at all.

They are, in fact, quite worrying.

That the head of Stellantis -which has brought together PSA and Fiat Chrysler for a year after having absorbed Opel- openly speaks out against the economic policy, or rather the lack of it, that the Government of Spain is carrying out should ignite

all alarms.

We are talking about the main industrial sector of our country after tourism

, and Tavares is crystal clear about it: «The Government runs the risk of losing the Spanish success of 30 years with the automobile».

He denounces that while countries like Germany, France or Italy are already offering to host their battery plants with a view to the mass production of electric cars, no one from the Sánchez Executive has contacted them.

worse than that:

the ideological weight that weighs down the vision of Vice President Ribera threatens to turn Spain into a country hostile to the automotive industry

, on which almost a million direct or indirect jobs depend in Catalonia alone.

It is one thing to deny climate change, which nobody sensible denies, and accept the need to move towards more sustainable industrial models, and quite another

the gargantuan absence of planning that allows the sector to accommodate certain conversion periods without causing job destruction

without precedents.

“If I can avoid closing factories, I will do it, but the future of our centers will also depend on the political limitations of decarbonisation in Europe,” warns Tavares.

It is not about climate denialism or other frivolous hyperbole that the President of the Government likes to evacuate lately, but about preventing the European and Spanish middle classes in particular from being suddenly excluded from the very possibility of buying cars and working with them in the not too distant future.

The forecasts of the CEO of Stellantis regarding the current supply crisis also belie the absurd triumphalism of the Government.

According to Tavares, the famous bottlenecks affecting semiconductors -a basic component for car production- will last at least this year.

And going further, it dares to question the forced electrification process that does not contemplate

other cheaper and less burdensome ways for the labor market to reduce emissions

.

"I do not think that governments can continue to subsidize the sale of electric vehicles until 2025," he says.

Listening to someone who knows a strategic sector of our economy in depth is typical of intelligent rulers.

Tavares' warnings should not fall into the bag of dogmatic and suicidal environmentalism,

whose imposition by decree ends up generating the rejection of broad layers of the population -starting with the working class- to a cause as pertinent as that of the decarbonization of the economy.

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