Mr. President, Lehendakari, representative of the government, Mr. Vergareche, Mr. President, authorities, ladies and gentlemen, good morning everyone. I am truly impressed to see this forum from here. David, I don't know if it's good or bad to play at home, as a Gipuzkoan from Zumárraga, although after 44 years in Donostia, I can start to say I am from Donostia with the mayor's permission, because I saw this newspaper in the kitchen at home since I was born and I learned to see before reading, because you could see it before reading it, and I still read it 60 years later. So from here, I can only hinder it because I don't know if playing at home is good or bad, and I refer to the football simile of recent weeks. But I want to say that I am comfortable here. And today I would like to start by reflecting on something that Pablo has already put the ball almost in the area, with the football simile, which is the need to have a competitive society with more opportunities for people. And when I say more opportunities for people, I am thinking especially of the young, the next generation. And I would also like to analyze the importance of industry and energy in achieving this goal. And speaking about this in Gipuzkoa gives me a bit of shame because one can talk about this elsewhere, but if this territory has had something all its life, it has been a very competitive territory historically for centuries and with the ability to adapt to very changing environments. And some may think that what we are experiencing now is unprecedented, that we are in a time of volatile change, we always tend to maximize the times we live in. And my point on this is that times have always been difficult, changing, and unprecedented. And without leaving this territory, we can think, for example, of the situation in the second half of the 17th century. The forges of Gipuzkoa were the main sector of activity. They exported iron products to Europe, Asia, the Far East, and America. And suddenly, a new technology emerged in Europe, the technology of blast furnaces, and the costs of the forges became unsustainable. They began to lose competitiveness. There was no alternative for the young, only the farmhouse, which could only support the eldest. The land could not be divided, and the only economic alternative at that time was for the young to emigrate, specifically to America.
What was the first reaction of this territory at that time? Not even these original smokes. Ask for tariffs. Ask for tariffs so that the product of the blast furnaces could not enter the foral territories. Obviously, that failed immediately because these things never work, and they had to start looking for new alternatives. And the response at that time, at the end of the 17th century in the times of the Enlightenment, was to bet on competitiveness. The forges of Rentería and Iraeta in Cestona incorporated the technology of the 'afandería'. The 'fandería' was a kind of second process, lamination, which gave a steel of higher added value and lighter. Munibe, Xavier de Munibe, with Narros and others, created the Royal Society of the Friends of the Country, they thought about what could be done at that time. They went out, brought in Proust. Adolfo, you can ask at home. The law of Proust, chemistry came. By the way, I also married chemistry. I mean, it happened to me like your parents. I also married a chemist, and the same thing happened to me as to your parents: none of my children followed that path. And they brought Proust from the lines of chemistry in Vergara. He began to research, to teach, they began to bring talent from outside. They brought the Elhuyar brothers, among others, who were from La Rioja and came to Vergara. In Vergara they discovered tungsten, they sought the best metallurgist in Europe at that time, who was Chabanneau, and brought him from Paris. Chabanneau, with a group of researchers in Vergara, developed the technologies for the purification of platinum for the first time. They prepared the young people to continue this work. Munibe himself sent his son Ramón to Paris, where he studied with Lavoisier, the master of all the laws of chemistry. He went to Freiberg, Germany, to Sweden. From there he sent plans and ideas on how to transform the forges. And I dare say that the world that these people faced at the end of the 18th century was much more inhospitable than ours. It was as changing as it is now. They had far fewer tools to deal with this situation. And what was the response that generation gave in the 18th century? Three words: competitiveness, competitiveness, competitiveness. Effort and work, training and a bet on talent, learning languages, going out without complexes to train, being attractive, making a territory attractive so that Proust and Lavoisier and these people could come from Paris to Vergara. When one reads Proust's letters from Vergara, there were also difficulties in having talent then. The things they said about the somewhat liberal customs of Proust and the things they said about him, that is another chapter. But having an open society to attract talent, being able to bet on technology and innovation. And I believe that the response we must give today in 2025 does not differ qualitatively from the response our enlightened thinkers gave in the 18th century. And I also believe that we do not need to go back to the 18th century to find references. I vindicate that industrial and technological environment, especially in Gipuzkoa, that we have known for decades and that has had the value of effort, work, integrity, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, innovation, and technology as its main objectives. And all this made Euskadi and Gipuzkoa a particularly competitive territory. And I vindicate that generation of entrepreneurs, that generation who, in particularly difficult circumstances, carried out all this action under threat, knowing that what they were doing exposed them at all times, and yet they always bet on entrepreneurship, on ensuring that their workers could continue to have a project to live on. They bet on competitiveness and on the social value of the company. A commitment without giving up, which could have been the easiest thing for many at that time. And convinced that to compete in a global world they had to continue making that bet.
And I believe that the response we must give today in 2025 does not differ qualitatively from the response our enlightened thinkers gave in the 18th century. And I also believe that we do not need to go back to the 18th century to find references. I vindicate that industrial and technological environment, especially in Gipuzkoa, that we have known for decades and that has had the value of effort, work, integrity, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, innovation, and technology as its main objectives. And all this made Euskadi and Gipuzkoa a particularly competitive territory. And I vindicate that generation of entrepreneurs, that generation who, in particularly difficult circumstances, carried out all this action under threat, knowing that what they were doing exposed them at all times, and yet they always bet on entrepreneurship, on ensuring that their workers could continue to have a project to live on. They bet on competitiveness and on the social value of the company. A commitment without giving up, which could have been the easiest thing for many at that time. And convinced that to compete in a global world they had to continue making that bet. A few weeks ago I accompanied, María Luisa, I saw you there, I accompanied your brother José Mari at the presentation of the book 'La Caverna' about the kidnapping of your father Jesús Gibert, and we had an interesting reflection, a dialogue between José Mari as the author and me as the presenter. And I believe that Gibert, José Mari Corta, José Alberdi who took the presidency of Adegi in that fateful August of 2000, where accepting the presidency of Adegi at that time was accepting a death sentence. Miguel Azpiur, José Mari Vizcaino, José Mari Rizchegui, Jesús Alberdi, and I could go on, but I am very unfair because I am forgetting many more, they bet on a competitive country in the most difficult circumstances we can imagine. I believe they must be our model in these times as well. And I have the feeling that we have been unfair to them. We have not sufficiently recognized what they have done as a generation, and that they have allowed us to get here, and some of them are still alive, so I leave the message because I think we still have time for this recognition. And being at home, I also don't want to forget Santiago Oleaga, who was also committed to a business project in difficult circumstances, in this case the defense of freedom of expression of a newspaper, the Diario Vasco, which was also taken from us. Therefore, we also live in complex times.
We live in complex times. We live in times when in Europe we are losing competitiveness and I think we have to be very clear in the diagnosis. If not, we can make mistakes in the remedies. And I honestly believe we have to react. Losing competitiveness means exactly the same as it meant in the 18th century. It means that young people do not have opportunities, that some or many have to migrate, and our alternative must be to develop a competitive economy, as you said a moment ago, Pablo, that offers opportunities for young people, allows them to have stable jobs, high salaries, and develop a life project here without having to emigrate. It is okay if some emigrate and then we bring in others. This has to be a zero-sum or positive-sum flow, but we have to give opportunities to young people, and this allows us to have a competitive industry with high-value-added services. The Draghi report, which you have all heard of, leaves no doubt. We need a radical change, says Draghi. My fear with the Draghi report is that it will end up like the Bible in an American hotel nightstand: something we all have on the table, maybe 5 or 6% read it, and practically no one applies the precepts. That is a risk we cannot afford because Draghi starts from a reality we cannot ignore. 15 years ago, not in prehistory or the 18th century, the European economy and the US economy had the same size, about 21-22% of global GDP. 15 years have passed. Today the US economy accounts for 26% of global GDP. It's not that China overtook us. The US economy has risen to 26% and the European economy is 17% of global GDP. We have fallen behind, and I think this must be part of the analysis. Therefore, we must focus all policies, all public policies at all levels of the European Union, on the competitiveness of the economy. It must be the absolute focus of all policies of the institutions within the European Union. And there are no excuses. I am sure that at this moment some are thinking that Imaz is giving a very economistic view of what a society should be, when others might say that priorities should be social welfare, sustainability, or strategic autonomy. Well, I could start to refute this argument personally, but it is simpler to rely on Draghi again. The Draghi report makes it very clear that without competitiveness and without an economy focused on growth, there will be no quality public services. Without competitiveness we will not improve sustainability. And if anyone has doubts, look at where the great environmental disasters of recent decades have been: on the other side of the Iron Curtain, in those countries that promised a social paradise. There have been the environmental disasters of the last century in countries without resources, the so-called Third World countries. The best path for social inclusion is also to have a competitive economy, and geopolitical relevance, which is also very important, whether we talk about Europe, Spain, or Euskadi, also depends on a competitive economy. And betting on competitiveness today requires betting on the company and industry. And employment is created by companies. And companies are created by entrepreneurs, they are not born by spontaneous generation. And I believe we need to reinforce and vindicate the social recognition of the entrepreneur and the executive. In our environment, we are seeing too many discourses that put the entrepreneur and the generation of wealth in the social crosshairs. Too many discourses, and we already lived through this in the past in this country. We already know what it means to put the entrepreneur and the generation of wealth in the crosshairs. And we already know the legacy and the pain that this leaves at the end of the road, in addition to the damage it caused to our economy in the long term. This is a path that slows investment, discourages the entrepreneur, and hinders competitiveness. Therefore, we cannot accept discourses that put the entrepreneur and the generation of wealth in the social crosshairs. We have to react to these types of discourses because the social damage they cause will inflict severe damage on the competitiveness of our economy. And growth and competitiveness must be a national objective that involves us all. Industry, as I said before, generates jobs, quality jobs, stable jobs, well-paid jobs. Industry is what feeds a science and technology environment, and it is in these ecosystems where innovation occurs. Industry and technology can allow an entire generation of young people in this country to have a promising future project of well-being, to be able to build their life project with their partner and children. This country has known how to do it in the past and must know how to do it in the future.
And betting on competitiveness today requires betting on the company and industry. And employment is created by companies. And companies are created by entrepreneurs, they are not born by spontaneous generation. And I believe we need to reinforce and vindicate the social recognition of the entrepreneur and the executive. In our environment, we are seeing too many discourses that put the entrepreneur and the generation of wealth in the social crosshairs. Too many discourses, and we already lived through this in the past in this country. We already know what it means to put the entrepreneur and the generation of wealth in the crosshairs. And we already know the legacy and the pain that this leaves at the end of the road, in addition to the damage it caused to our economy in the long term. This is a path that slows investment, discourages the entrepreneur, and hinders competitiveness. Therefore, we cannot accept discourses that put the entrepreneur and the generation of wealth in the social crosshairs. We have to react to these types of discourses because the social damage they cause will inflict severe damage on the competitiveness of our economy. And growth and competitiveness must be a national objective that involves us all. Industry, as I said before, generates jobs, quality jobs, stable jobs, well-paid jobs. Industry is what feeds a science and technology environment, and it is in these ecosystems where innovation occurs. Industry and technology can allow an entire generation of young people in this country to have a promising future project of well-being, to be able to build their life project with their partner and children. This country has known how to do it in the past and must know how to do it in the future. Therefore, we need policies focused on the competitiveness of European industry. Do you remember that goal in Europe of maintaining a European GDP above 20%? We quickly forgot it because we never fulfilled it. Draghi has put it back on the table and has revived this debate. Allow me to continue drawing from the Draghi report, because that is what it was written for, so that we use it, but above all so that it is applied, so that it does not remain on the nightstand. And I share some of Draghi's recipes absolutely. The first: we must continue to deepen the European single market. We need fewer technical barriers, fewer restrictions on free competition, less local regulation that breaks and divides the market. If we want to have a competitive economy like the US, we need a European market, and for that we need a market of 450 million people, because that will allow us to have competitiveness in the system, to have large European companies, to have European leaders, which has always been an objective of all administrations: to encourage companies to grow, to have larger companies. Here in Euskadi it has been a goal for decades, and efforts have been made in that direction, but it remains one of the weaknesses of the Basque economy. Second, analysis of the Draghi report: we must reduce the regulatory burden on companies. For 60% of European companies, the enormous regulation is the main obstacle to investment, for 60% of European companies. We need fewer laws, fewer regulations, fewer ordinances, fewer directives. We need, in short, a lower regulatory cost for companies. Note that in the same weeks that Draghi presented the report, around the summer, the European Commission approved the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. Some of you know it and some have suffered it. This directive, approved at the same time Draghi was saying this, has multiplied the sustainability reporting costs for the company I represent by four. A growing number of people dedicated simply to reporting, more advisors, more consultants, all with cost for the company, reducing competitiveness and ultimately the investment capacity of a company. But I do not want to fall into pessimism, first because it is not good, and second because it would be unfair. I believe that the new European Commission is starting to turn the ship around, it is starting to change. It listens to companies in recent months, which is very important. It has even launched the so-called 'omnibus' initiative for the reduction of the intensity and dimension of corporate reporting. This is good. My
Do you remember that goal in Europe of maintaining a European GDP above 20%? We quickly forgot it because we never fulfilled it. Draghi has put it back on the table and has revived this debate. Allow me to continue drawing from the Draghi report, because that is what it was written for, so that we use it, but above all so that it is applied, so that it does not remain on the nightstand. And I share some of Draghi's recipes absolutely. The first: we must continue to deepen the European single market. We need fewer technical barriers, fewer restrictions on free competition, less local regulation that breaks and divides the market. If we want to have a competitive economy like the US, we need a European market, and for that we need a market of 450 million people, because that will allow us to have competitiveness in the system, to have large European companies, to have European leaders, which has always been an objective of all administrations: to encourage companies to grow, to have larger companies. Here in Euskadi it has been a goal for decades, and efforts have been made in that direction, but it remains one of the weaknesses of the Basque economy. Second, analysis of the Draghi report: we must reduce the regulatory burden on companies. For 60% of European companies, the enormous regulation is the main obstacle to investment, for 60% of European companies. We need fewer laws, fewer regulations, fewer ordinances, fewer directives. We need, in short, a lower regulatory cost for companies. Note that in the same weeks that Draghi presented the report, around the summer, the European Commission approved the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. Some of you know it and some have suffered it. This directive, approved at the same time Draghi was saying this, has multiplied the sustainability reporting costs for the company I represent by four. A growing number of people dedicated simply to reporting, more advisors, more consultants, all with cost for the company, reducing competitiveness and ultimately the investment capacity of a company. But I do not want to fall into pessimism, first because it is not good, and second because it would be unfair. I believe that the new European Commission is starting to turn the ship around, it is starting to change. It listens to companies in recent months, which is very important. It has even launched the so-called 'omnibus' initiative for the reduction of the intensity and dimension of corporate reporting. This is good.
Our message is that we need much more speed at all levels, because this happens to us at all levels of the administration. Regulatory cost increases occur every day. A law, a regulation is approved suddenly, but then reversing it and reducing those brutal costs for companies takes a lot of time and affects competitiveness and our social model. The third and last aspect I want to highlight from the report, and David, that's why you invited me, although maybe not many clues, is the part related to energy. And here the analysis is also clear, and if anyone has any doubts, open the nightstand, take the Draghi report page 31 and read that high energy costs are an obstacle to growth. We need a Europe where we focus much more on energy policy to improve the competitiveness of companies. Draghi's analysis is also a pyre. In the last 6 years we have lost 12% of highly energy-intensive companies in Europe. 12%. This means that in the steel sector, the aluminum sector, the paper sector, the chemical sector or the cement sector, one in eight companies closed in the last 6 years. And the first reason is the high European energy costs compared to our competitors. Gas in Europe costs three times more than our American competitors. Electricity twice as much. In the heat of the Ukraine war crisis, we have paid 10 and at times up to 15 times more for gas than our North American competitors. We need energy policies.
Now we have in all areas ecological transition policies, as Ángel Erchundi says in his book... We need energy policies that are called that, with a focus on energy and not subordinated to ecology, because an energy policy must be subordinated to a triple objective, the so-called trilemma. First, guarantee security of supply. In Europe we forgot this priority and threw ourselves into the arms of Russia instead of betting on our own energy generation, including natural gas. We declared natural gas outlawed, we even have a law passed by the Congress of Deputies in July 2021 that prohibits exploring and producing natural gas in our territory. Yes, US gas saved Europe in the Ukraine crisis. We have no shame in importing gas from the United States all day to shower, to feed our industries, to heat our homes. When the CO2 we emit is actually much higher because it is emitted there in extraction, it is emitted here when we consume it, and it is also emitted in transport. In the end, emissions are clearly higher than if we produced it ourselves. The second objective that an energy policy must have is affordability. We have to move forward on this path. For a long time we have had unbearable energy costs for industries and families. They are improving. Again, I subscribe to a non-defeatist message, they are improving and we have started to focus on them and we are beginning to talk about the priority of lowering the cost of energy. And I think this is a positive thing and it is good news. And as Draghi says, we need speed on this path. Our industry needs energy at a competitive price and we must use all available resources for that. And the third objective must be a sustainable, decarbonized economy and energy. It cannot be the only objective, it cannot be the central objective, but it must be an essential axis of the energy trilemma. And we have to carry out decarbonization intelligently. Do you remember? We used to talk about sustainable development. We have forgotten the noun development and we are left only with the adjective, right? No. No. Sustainable development. Without the noun development there is no adjective, there is no sustainable, and there is no sustainable development without development. And this requires betting on competitiveness, that is, decarbonizing based on our technological and industrial capabilities.
And the first principle that we have broken in Europe and here in our administrations is the principle of technological neutrality. What does this mean? Draghi also denounces this in his report precisely, that we must be agnostic with technologies. We must use all technologies that serve to reduce emissions without ideological biases. We cannot put ideology ahead of technology, and this ideological approach is continuously imposed under that umbrella of ecological transition in energy and mobility policies, causing serious damage to our industrial fabric. And I will give you, to not stay in theory, some very graphic examples. The first, a deeply erroneous decision was approved, such as banning the sale of combustion engine cars in 2035 in Europe. There is no technical justification, I am willing to discuss it in any forum with anyone, that justifies this approach. It is purely ideological, but the damage it is causing to our automotive sector is enormous. And in a territory like the Basque Country, where 20% of the GDP is associated with the automotive sector, the risk of the damage that this decision can cause is very serious. The combustion engine was 15 years ago the jewel of European industry. Only the Japanese could look us eye to eye. We have thrown ourselves into the arms of a technology dominated by the Chinese. We do not have the raw materials for its development, and all of this is based on a false assumption. We measure CO2 emissions in the exhaust pipe, and CO2 that is emitted in Donosti, in Shanghai, in Mostoles is exactly the same because it has no local effect, and we forget to measure CO2 emissions from Chinese mining, we forget to measure CO2 emissions from the battery manufactured with electricity produced with coal. And we don't account for all of this because there is no doubt. That is, today a car with renewable diesel fuel and a combustion engine emits less CO2 in its life cycle than an electric car. This is true. And if we take... there is no technical data that supports that an electric car in Germany today emits, with the German electricity mix, less CO2 than a hybrid gasoline car in Germany. Therefore, what are we doing? What we are doing is not measuring them, and our own administrations are fiscally favoring the purchase of a certain type of mobility, generating damage, so to speak, to our industrial fabric, when, for example, today a renewable diesel pays 100% of the hydrocarbon tax, when there is no logic with what this should be in terms of CO2 emissions. Anyway, some good news. The Basque Government, I also have good news for it. The Basque Government, with the industry department at the forefront, and I want to publicly congratulate them because you have to be brave in these times. To do this, it has made a decision in which the aid it is giving for the renewal of the car fleet is technologically agnostic. That is, it is about renewing the fleet, whether with a diesel car, a gasoline, a gas or an electric, whatever the consumer wants. And we have to reverse this decision at the European level because the damage is beginning to be very evident in the automotive sector, also in the vehicle fleet and also in CO2. I will give a couple of examples. In the end, what are we generating? By the way, today there is a beautiful page in the Diario Vasco on this topic, regarding the aging of the vehicle fleet. What are we generating? People don't know what car to buy, and because people don't know what car to buy, they delay the decision to buy. We had an average car life of 8 years in 2008. That is, the average life of a car was 8 years. Today it is 14.9, the data from the team. 14.7 is the data I had, but I'm sure yours is more current. Because for the report you have updated it, we have brought the average life of the fleet to almost 15 years. What does this mean? That we have older and older cars, cars that could emit much less CO2 simply by renewing them, simply by renewing a diesel with today's engine or a gasoline with a Euro 1 from the year 2000 would reduce CO2 emissions by 28-30%. But if we go to the problem separating what is CO2 from what can be NOX pollution or particles, simply a new car today would generate 92% fewer particles than a car from the year 2000 and 84% less nitrogen oxides. We have an increasingly older fleet and the emission problem is not technology, it is the old fleet, and also less safety on the roads, more damage to our industrial fabric and also more CO2 emissions because we have technologies, whether electric, gas, diesel, gasoline, that are at our disposal and we are not taking advantage of them. Why? Because we have an ideological barrier above technology when making these decisions. Furthermore, what signals have we given to car manufacturers? Imagine you are a car manufacturer and they tell you, 'Hey, in 2035 this ends.' What have you done in the last years? Not invest anything in engine efficiency, obviously, because this is ending. Consequently, cars used to decrease consumption, 11 L per 100 km, 10, 9, 8, 7, and they have stayed there. They haven't decreased for years and they won't decrease anymore. And half, if what the Diario Vasco says today is true and it is, and the average life is 15 years, that means that if this survives the year 2035, half of the vehicle fleet in 2050 will still be combustion engine, and in the next three decades we will not reduce emissions. But what are we doing? What are we doing by putting ideology ahead of technology? Fortunately, some lights are beginning to turn on in this direction. The European Commission has already started to ask for papers, as these things are done in Europe, technical papers. Maybe we should measure, we could approximate the measurement of the entire CO2 footprint of a car, not just in the exhaust pipe. I think they are preparing the decision, fortunately, and then there are governments like Germany, Italy and others that are pushing strongly for this decision to reverse the ban on the combustion engine. The problem is not that it will be reversed, I am convinced that combustion engines will not be banned in 2050. The problem is that every year that passes without making this decision, we are causing irreparable damage to the automotive sector.
Another aspect that the report also focuses on is the payment of CO2 rights by European industry under the promise of CO2 adjustment mechanisms that will make imported products pay a border adjustment mechanism and therefore we can be competitive. These adjustment mechanisms, we will see when they arrive, we will see how they are implemented in this context, we will see what deadlines they have, and we will see if there is any CO2-emitting and energy-consuming industry left when this is implemented. That is, we have a plant in, I don't know, Pasauri, Olaverría, it emits CO2, we tax it heavily. Many European industrial projects, as I said before, cease to be competitive, close, plants are set up in other parts of the world, we import those products, we have exported plants and we have exported industrial jobs. Of course, plants in Turkey, China, with all due respect to those countries, are usually less efficient than ours. They emit more CO2 and we also import it. Consequently, the product we consume has a higher CO2 footprint along the entire path, but we are happy because we are sustainable. Yes, we have exported industry, we have exported industrial jobs and we have exported CO2 emissions. And some sectors like the chemical industry, Adolfo, have been going through a very complicated situation for 3 years in Europe, and there are announcements, for example, in Germany, in the Benelux, of closure of chemical plants. The chemical sector has been systematically losing money for 3 years in Europe and these CO2 costs are to a certain extent a death blow to this industrial activity. Therefore, we need a radical turnaround here too, as Draghi says, to implement a moratorium on the payment of CO2 rights for high energy-consuming industrial sectors that suffer a double penalty. On the one hand, the high cost of energy, and on the other hand, CO2 rights. And if we don't do it, in the coming years we will have more plant closures and more loss of industrial jobs, and then we will lament. We have to act. The direction is not bad, but we need speed.
We have to speak clearly. We are living through an industrial emergency in Europe and we have to react, and the European institutions have already started to turn the ship around, and the radical ecological policies, which have permeated everything, and hyperregulation are beginning to change slightly in the right direction. But the speed of this change is key. Why? If we want our industrial sectors to be competitive and Europe to be able to achieve that path of competitiveness that allows us to maintain a social model, our social welfare, the quality of public services, we need to react and we want to follow the path of competitiveness of our partners and our American friends. And this is what would allow us to maintain levels of social welfare, a truly sustainable society in environmental terms, and also achieve strategic autonomy for essential sectors, because strategic autonomy also requires being competitive in the industrial sectors in which you need to have that autonomy. And we all have to contribute to this path, not only the administrations, but also the companies. And the company I run, I would say has a double moral responsibility. On the one hand, we have the moral responsibility to continue producing oil and gas. It is our moral responsibility. Because, for example, that day, David, that you commented on the big blackout of April 28, what saved this country was diesel, the reviled diesel. And therefore, it is our moral responsibility to continue producing diesel. It is our moral responsibility to continue producing diesel so that products reach supermarkets every morning, because otherwise they couldn't arrive. It is our moral responsibility to continue producing gas for industrial activity. It is our moral responsibility to continue producing kerosene so that even those who revile us can continue flying on vacation, for work, or so that tourist areas can have activity that people can travel to. But this is not the only moral responsibility we have. We have another moral responsibility. We also have the moral responsibility to do this increasingly sustainably. In the last 7 years we have reduced 75% of our CO2 and methane emissions in our exploration and production activity using the best technologies. We have now, because we also have to decarbonize products, not only industrial activities, we already have more than 1,000 service stations with 100% renewable diesel, a diesel that we manufacture with raw materials that come from vegetable oils, recycled oils, animal fats, pyrolysis of plastics that generate economic activity and added income in the so-called emptied Spain or rural Spain, where these complementary incomes are the basis for being able to maintain population activity, and we have before the end of the year we already have 15 service stations with 100% renewable diesel and we have to continue growing also in renewable electricity above any debate that exists today. We are already a medium operator in this segment, but we already have 4,600 MW of renewables in operation. We are building 15. We have a portfolio, the so-called pipeline of 40,000 MW for the coming years and we already supply electricity to more than 1.6 million homes. I'll finish. Transition is a journey. Transition is not a destination. As its name says, transition is a journey, and it is a journey in which we have to commit, but it is a journey in which we have to guarantee three things to society along the way. And this is the difficult part, because when things are monofocal, they are very easy. Security of supply. Second, affordability, that is, that families can pay for energy, that we don't have what happened in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and that industries can pay for energy and compete with their North American, Middle Eastern or other competitors, and of course, to make this energy and produce this energy in an increasingly decarbonized way, without forgetting any of the three objectives, but not unbalancing these objectives so that one of them makes the other two impossible. It is a complex journey, it is an exciting journey, it is a journey that I like, but it is a journey for which we need more technology and less ideology. Thank you very much.
But I have no idea about cars, I'm not an expert on cars, there are people who ask me that question on the street and something is failing when people are asking that. I link this to the uncertainty I referred to earlier. People don't know what car to buy because all the signals we are launching at the European level make this a complex decision. And of course, what is happening is that we have an older fleet, a negative impact on industrial activity, and on top of that we don't reduce emissions. Of course. And someone might think, surely someone has thought in the conference, don't tell me no. Of course, what is this guy going to say if he is Repsol? No, no, no, no. Let's not fool ourselves, and I don't want to be cynical because it's obviously not a topic to be cynical about, and besides, the director of communication of Repsol is already looking at me with a bad face when he intuits what I'm going to say, which is that this doesn't hurt Repsol, right? No, not at all, because of course, if we replace the car fleet and cars consume 30% less, our sales drop 30%. If car manufacturers are told that the ban on the combustion engine will last until 2050, until 2050 there are years left and they start to reduce and invest in engine efficiency, sales drop. So, this is damage to the automotive industry, it is social damage, and it is damage to CO2 emissions. Therefore, we close the parenthesis. In any case, what I have said does not benefit us. And let's go now to the question.
I would say what we have to do, and in that sense, I think that this aid project of the Basque government, if it is well articulated and if moreover it has the complements in all administrations, and I have seen it there at the entrance, Ancha Tapia, who also fought hard to defend this agnostic vision of energy and the commitment to industry. What we have to do is that people buy the car they want and the car they need. Well, I am not suspect. I was the one who put into operation in 2010, if I remember correctly, while I was in charge of New Energies at Repsol, together with the EV, the first electric charging service with Xavier Garmendia, who was the deputy counselor of environment at that time, the first electric car charging service in the country. This is also part of the solution. What we have to achieve is that I, since I often have to travel by car to Madrid too many times, for that my best option, mine, is a diesel because it gives me a lot of autonomy. And from there, one can legitimately opt for an efficient gasoline car, a hybrid gasoline car. Others may have the vocation to buy an electric car because it is convenient for them to move around the cities. I prefer to bet, but this is already a bit of chauvinism for the country's technology and so on. That's why I like combustion engines more, but this is already a subjective opinion of mine. But I would say, we have to ensure that everyone buys the car they want and that aid is linked to decarbonization, not to technology, and that we remove uncertainty, so that people know what to buy, because the first ones who are, with all due respect to them, I understand them, the first ones who are absolutely bewildered are the car manufacturers, because of course, they are not being led to the path of total electrification and they cannot maintain investments in two systems, so they are taking a step in a direction that they may find difficult in the future. But as soon as possible, remove David. Note down diesel then.
No, no, no, don't buy. Hey, an example, when my son asked me recently, for the needs he had, what car he should buy, if he should buy a diesel, I told him that from that point of view, the car for you is a diesel. It depends, it depends on the kilometers you do, it depends on you, each one has to buy a car adapted to their needs. And if you want an electric for the city or a plug-in electric, perfect. A plug-in hybrid. Do you want a mild hybrid, a gasoline? Let it be a personal choice of the people and that we logically help the renewal of the fleet. That nobody knows what car to buy with money. We live in a comfortable society with high income. It describes perfectly the disorientation of Europe and describes the big problem that companies have that have created two lines of automotive, one for electrification, another for combustion, and now they don't know what to do. Well, we have a comfortable society in some sectors, we have sectors in this society, in all European societies, that some obviously are just getting by, others moderately, and others poorly. So, in that sense also a social reflection, and I speak at the European level because we have here a person that I appreciate very much, who is the deputy of Finance of Guipuzcoa, I say, I speak of European fiscal policy, not of fiscal policy at our level overall, it is that we have a perfect system of income transfer from the poor to the rich, because the people who can normally buy those cars that we are promoting are the people who have more income in society, and so we are giving all the aid so that they buy the cars with the taxes of the people who have fewer resources, so that those who have more resources have aid. And yet, and that's why I have spoken, I have congratulated the initiative from the Basque Government of Vicente Cari, who is here, for betting on the line of that technological agnosticism. The good news in this sense is that also the person who enters from a disadvantaged area with his car into a city, and I say cities have their policies, and with the mayor here, much respect. Cities logically have their mobility policies, absolutely legitimate, acceptable, and each one has its own, but the key is not, from my point of view, to refute those low emission zones. What we have to do is that that person who enters with that 20-year-old diesel into a city can renew that diesel, which normally, moreover, fiscally is fairer, from a point of view more progressive, can buy a diesel car that normally, due to the type of car, will be manufactured in a nearby environment, activates industry, possibly that money is recovered by the administrations in a short time. We reduce emissions, as I said before, approximately, if it is a Euro 1 from the year 2000, 91-92% of particles and 84% of nitrogen oxides, which is easy to say, and CO2, therefore energy consumption, around 28%. For me, that is what should be done, and that is what that measure that the Basque Government has just adopted points to.
