Fagor Appliances is already in the hands of its creditors, so it is very likely that its liquidation will take place. That means that thousands of direct and indirect jobs will be lost, the region will be impoverished, and the billionaire contributions of small savers will also come to the abyss.

When analysing this situation, the most basic one must be addressed. Fagor Appliances has not been able to make progress due to lack of funding. Part of the business could be saved if there were funding for a company with a debt of EUR 800 million. The financial institutions (BBK, BBVA, Santander, Laboral Kutxa and Lagun Aro) have had their reasons not to save Fagor, which has been rejected. The administrations preferred to rescue millions of dollars from corrupt banks to rescue a company that is part of the Basque industrial fabric. The Mondragon Group is responsible for the rest of the cooperatives and certainly for lack of external financing it has not offered any aid to the cooperative that has collapsed.

The fall of Fagor does not mean the fall of cooperativism. It is not the fall of Mondragon, which integrates many profitable societies and employs tens of thousands of workers, becoming a worldwide reference. It is not and cannot be the fall of cooperativism. The values of cooperativism must be defended from the wave of savage capitalism. It is precisely in the fight against industrial sharks that Fagor has perhaps forgotten its roots and acted as a capitalist company. That is why management responsibilities in Fagor and Mondragon have to be refined. And looking forward, propitiating the situation, alleviating unemployment, creating new jobs… But above all, we must maintain the solidarity values of the Basque cooperativism so that we do not get the capitalist wave.