The government may extend until 2028, three years more than currently planned, the spending by companies on aid to the automobile sector that it articulates through the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE), as the manufacturers demanded. The European Commission transferred the acceptance of its proposal to the Ministry of Industry last week, so that the changes may be included in the second call for the aid scheme that is scheduled to be launched in March or, at the latest, in April, according to what the Secretary General of Industry, Francisco Blanco, confirmed to EL PAS: “They have already said yes and have approved everything we demand of them.”
The extension of the schedule for the implementation of aid was the most important measure on the negotiation table between the government and Brussels with regard to the automotive sector. Some manufacturers demanded more margin to be able to introduce their investment plans after seeing how the ceiling that marked the first edition of PERTE at the end of 2025 left them out. This was the case for Ford with the Almussafes factory and Stellantis with various projects planned for its three Spanish plants.There are also doubts about the battery cell factory planned by the Chinese company Envision, with the participation of Acciona, in Extremadura.
That is why, once the first edition of PERTE was closed, because of a failure in consideration of the sector because the ministry barely exhausted 29% of the available resources (2,975 million euros), negotiations began with the European Union to gain flexibility in a second call. The Ministry of Industry urged that changes be made that were “not substantial,” but this did not change the basis of the first call. And you already have the answer: yes.
In addition to gaining three years to be able to invest in the projects, Brussels has also accepted that companies that participate in a PERTE but that have less than 15% of the role in the driving project in which they participate must reduce the weight of the necessary guarantees to receive aid. Until now, like the rest of the members, it was necessary to present guarantees for a total amount greater than 80% of the investment, while now that percentage will be 40%. And another element that will contribute to broadening the base of the projects in search of subsidies will be the type of costs eligible to be subsidized, since fungible capital costs are introduced in processes such as R&D+i.
The General Secretariat for Industry is focused on how to spend all the funds reserved for the conversion of the car from the Next Generation Funds. After the award process was completed, only 834 million euros were allocated, so more than 2,100 million remain pending.
A new line of aid
The second PERTE call for the electric vehicle will hardly manage to exceed the allocation figure of the first, so the government will activate a second line of aid outside the strategic project but fed with the same European resources. It will do so through the General Regulation of Exemption by Categories, which aims to make it easier to allocate funds to individual company projects rather than larger, more complex ones in which multiple companies must participate, affecting various supply chain links.value of the automotive industry. “It is a very important process of flexibility and simplification,” admits Blanco, who avoids setting objectives for the resources that the ministry considers that it will be able to mobilize.
In this case, the initial idea is to keep a window open for companies to apply for aid until December, until the available funds run out. This subsidy route will have the resources that are not exhausted through the PERTE route.
