The Valencian government and the farmers with plots on which the Volkswagen gigafactory in Sagunto will be located have embarked on a judicial war. The reason is none other than the price that the Administration is willing to pay to the owners for the expropriation of their land. If the Volkswagen subsidiary responsible for the battery factory (PowerCo) is going to pay 63.66 million euros to the Generalitat for the purchase of 1.3 million square meters of industrial land, the farmers denounce that the Administration wants to make cash with them to avoid paying them up to 25 million euros.
According to sources familiar with the negotiations, some 800 farmers of the 2,000 affected smallholders have appealed the prices proposed for the expropriation. This has led the Administration to go to court in order not to have to pay the amounts set by the provincial expropriation jury. It must be taken into account that the public company in charge of the development of the Sagunto industrial park (Espais Econòmics Empresarials, 50% owned by the Generalitat and the Government of Spain) valued between 10 and 15 euros per square meter for a large part of the plots . And, with the aim of speeding up the process, it offered its owners private purchase agreements.
However, many of the landowners - most of them farmers - did not accept these amounts, considering them derisory, so they went to the arbitration jury, which, in practice, ruled in their favor. In other words, it established the fair price to expropriate in a range that oscillates between 25 and 40 euros per square meter in the best of cases.
Sources from the Generalitat defend themselves, alleging that "an independent expert opinion was used that set the values based on the use of the land, plantations, varieties or age of the crops, always following the established regulations." But, given the disparity in prices, these same sources assume that "now the way for both the Administration and the owners to reach an agreement is litigation."
But this is precisely what the main Valencian agrarian associations, AVA-Asaja and La Unió Llauradora, question, accusing the public company of wanting to "benefit Volkswagen" at the expense of small farmers, who are subjected to "insane treatment ». And this because, for example, a small owner who does not want to be paid 1,073 euros has been brought to trial, which is the difference between the amount that was initially offered and the just price established by the expropriation jury.
"In addition to delaying payment for at least three years, the judicial procedure will cost more than the amount for which it is litigated," they lament from the agrarian associations that, on the contrary, focus on the 260 million that the different actions of conditioning of the area where the gigafactory will go are assuming for the Valencian public coffers.
The Generalitat began the expropriation of the land of the so-called Parc Sagunt II almost a year ago, even before Volkswagen announced its intention to locate its battery factory in this municipality. The Valencian Government has speeded up the procedures by declaring it a strategic territorial project and promising tax benefits to the company.
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