“Entrepreneurs generate wealth and well-being, if then those who govern know how to do it, there is wealth for everyone; if not, there are confrontations”. These are the only words that Juan Roig said yesterday, in a critical key, and that are interpreted as a defense of the business community after the statements by Minister Ione Belarra last Saturday.
Roig participated as presenter of the conference offered by Vicente Boluda, president of the Valencian Association of Entrepreneurs, at the New Economy Forum Tribune Forum at the Las Arenas hotel. In the presence of Roig, Boluda did enter into criticism and said that “either we are all ruthless capitalists or we are none” and wondered if “when fuel rises, do we have to hang the president of Repsol?” The businessman defended that “they want to confront us” and recalled that in the distribution market “there is no monopoly: if it is not convenient for you to buy here, buy next door.”
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In the same response to the statements by the also general secretary of Podemos, Boluda assured that “one can expect anything from Mr. Sánchez”, referring to the possible cap on the price of food. And although the shipping company was of the opinion that “any measure to protect the groups seems great to me”, he added that “from there to crushing the businessmen, it seems outrageous to me”.
You can expect anything from Mr. Sánchez”
Both Boluda and Roig, both prominent Valencian businessmen, vindicated the business community before an audience with little institutional representation and a markedly economic profile. They were the delegate of the Government, Pilar Bernabé; the general director of Social Dialogue Coordination, Zulima Pérez; the president of the CEV, Salvador Navarro, the president of the Valencia Chamber, José Vicente Morata and the general secretary of the UGT-PV, Ismael Sáez, among others.
General view of an informative breakfast of Forum Europa, at the Hotel Las Arenas.
And before this audience, with a low political profile, Vicente Boluda stated that he was “disappointed by the bad image that he tries to give himself to businessmen, who in reality are the true engines of our economy.” In the speech, he highlighted the role of the business community, but he also entered the political arena and vindicated the Transition for all the “agreements, resignations and gestures” that he assumed.
Where he was most loquacious was in question time, answering all the questions that were raised, with direct criticism of the management of the Valencia City Council -with whom he maintains obvious differences due to the expansion of the port- and, without hesitation, of the mayor . And it is that to the question, directly, of if the policies of the consistory can retract international investment, he said that “I do not think that they help a lot to make important investments come.”
We will have to ask the mayor why he has let the Copa América escape.”
He also qualified that “Volkswagen is in the Sagunt City Council, which is not Valencia” and raised what would have happened with the gigafactory being in Valencia: “The same would have happened as with the Copa América, which is in Barcelona.” On the march of the nautical competition to Barcelona, Boluda questioned the work of the mayor, Joan Ribó: “We will have to ask the mayor why he has let her escape.” Without going into details, he added: “I can sense why they have done it… We are still working for others.”
The president of the Valencian Association of Entrepreneurs, Vicente Boluda (i) and the president of Mercadona, Juan Roig.
After this, the shipping company’s distance from some political formations became clearer if possible when he spoke of the upcoming elections, as he acknowledged that he hopes that no big party “needs any small party, since they are very different governing with their ideas than having than to do it by agreeing”. Likewise, he was close to the proposal launched by Alberto Núñez Feijóo this Monday when he confessed to being delighted with the French second-round system because “there the one who gets the most votes, rules, and the rest to wait.”
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In his speeches, in a relaxed tone, he had time to remember the diplomatic corps – “I ask where they are to go to the other side” -, defend nuclear energy and the Mediterranean corridor, of which he said “advances, although slower than what we would like”.
In social networks
The Valencia City Council replies to Boluda and Illueca, to Roig
The Valencia City Council has replied to Vicente Boluda that the city is in “one of its best moments” in terms of employment and attracting companies and that the Copa América will finally be held in Barcelona because “businessmen there have put money on top of the desk”. This is how the Councilor for the Treasury, Borja Sanjuán, and the Deputy Mayor and Councilor for Urban Ecology, Sergi Campillo, reacted yesterday. “València is at a great economic moment and has the best level of employment in the last 16 years”, highlighted Sanjuán (PSPV), for whom “it is surreal to say that there are no large investments in Valencia”, a city that has defended that “It is attracting more investment than Madrid or Barcelona”. “It is time to congratulate ourselves and to continue working instead of generating false stories,” he claimed. On the other hand, Campillo has declared that “reality is not like Boluda looks, another thing is that I miss those times when I shared the VIP box with the Partido Popular politicians who led us to ruin, who left us bogged down the Grau neighborhood with the great fiasco of the Formula 1 circuit”, he said yesterday in statements to the media.
Vicente Boluda’s conference has not left the political class indifferent. On social networks, the vice president of the Consell, Hèctor Illueca, said that “despite what Juan Roig says, the truth is the opposite: human work is the only source of value and wealth creation. Although some are make your hair stand on end, we can imagine a society without employers, but we cannot imagine a society without workers”.
