The Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, announced this Tuesday the extension to 2028 of the execution period of the projects benefiting from the Electric and Connected Vehicle Perte (VEC), as the Spanish automotive industry has been demanding.
During his speech at a forum organized by the Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (Anfac), Maroto also recalled that the new Perte call will come out “shortly” -between March and May- with the aim of positioning Spain as leader in the new mobility model. This second call, which the Government finalizes with the European Commission and the automotive sector, could be novelties to end the bottlenecks that were registered in the first edition.
Specifically, Maroto has explained that the concepts that can be financed by European funds will be made more flexible, the guarantees will be reduced so that they can access these small companies and the execution periods will be extended. Likewise, it will have two lines of competition, one of them competitive like the one of the first edition with the focus on the so-called tractor projects”, and another of simple competition to finance individual projects with an impact on the different links of the value chain. .
This second line will allow small companies to access European funds and complement large “tractor” projects. Regarding this new call for the Perte VEC, Maroto has once again shown his confidence that the American manufacturer Ford will attend, which in the inaugural Perte VEC ended up renouncing the aid that the Government had initially assigned.
In global terms, he explained that different calls for a value of 2,069 million euros have been opened for the automotive sector, which represents close to 50% of the volume of initially allocated public funds. In this sense, if the committed funds that are already available to companies are considered, this figure stands at 1,304 million.
stimulate demand
Despite these figures, Maroto has recognized that Spain is in a “disadvantageous” position in terms of electric vehicle penetration compared to the rest of its European neighbours. For this reason, he explained that the Government’s priority is to stimulate demand to increase sales of electric vehicles and promote the implementation of a recharging infrastructure network that seems essential. “Not only do we have to manufacture cars, but we also have to sell them,” Maroto recorded.
