In his daily morning press conference at the National Palace, the president thus responded to a question about statements by the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, who made his government’s support for the electricity reform conditional on it not affecting Iberdrola, Repsol and other Iberian companies.
López Obrador expressed that it is important that the reform is approved because it prevents abuses, and gave as an example private companies that support someone who sets up a wind, solar or gas plant and what it produces is supposedly for self-consumption, but it is not. .
What they did was create a large company and they all became partners of Iberdrola until it became a monopoly that charges the domestic consumer dearly and pays less for the electricity that their companies and businesses spend, and, in addition, they receive subsidies, and all these tricks they are eliminated if the electricity reform is approved, he said.
The same, he said, happens with lithium, which everyone is after, because the reform also clarifies that this resource must be exploited by the nation and not by foreign companies, because it is a strategic mineral for the country’s development.
The president warned that it will not be possible to replace oil if there is no development of lithium, essential to specify alternative energies.
He recalled that the Mexican deputies and senators are the ones who are going to decide and it is interesting because the reform is a place to see who is in favor of the Federal Electricity Commission, which is a public company that provides services to the people and proposes not to increase rates.
He affirmed that Mexico does not want the same thing to happen to it that is happening now in Spain and predicted that even with all the power that Repsol, Iberdrola and all those companies have, Madrid is going to have to put a stop to them because people can no longer stand the prices of electricity and gas.
It is also the case, he pointed out, of the United States with the increase in gasoline prices, “and now they come to Mexico to load fuel because there is no one to pay for them there.”
He clarified that a rational subsidy policy is being applied so that there are no “gasolinazos” and to be able to corner inflation. If we don’t put up with it, even if we increase crude oil production, it will end everything because of the cost of living, he warned.
Now, he said, we have a different policy and it helps us, we are free because a country dominated by foreign companies, what hope can it assure the people, none and that is not even good for the companies themselves.
There must be a separation of the economic and the political, and when the former dominates and controls the political, the majority of citizens have no protection. This is what we are now experiencing in Mexico: that government is for everyone, he said.
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