THE to start up green family Sarah Aagesennew third vice-president and Minister of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, obtained 171,300 euros from the government of Pedro Sánchez while she was Secretary of State for Energy in the department of her predecessor, European Commissioner Teresa Ribera. Her husband, the engineer Diego Fernández-Polanco Íñiguez de la Torrelike his brother, Erik Aagesenare closely linked to the company Te Consulting House 4 Plus SLwith registered trademark teCH4+according to information from the commercial register.
Aagesen’s husband is a co-founder of this company and is listed as sole administrator of said signature, while the minister’s brother states in his curriculum vitae that he is technical director since 2020 of this company, a clean technology company dedicated to organic waste management, anaerobic digestion and biogas production through its thermal hydrolysis patent.
More specifically, after Aagesen became Secretary of State for Energy in 2020THE to start up of his family – created in 2014 and headquartered in Valladolid – has carried out two direct grants and a loan of the Executive of which he was and is part as a senior official. This is indicated in the National System of Publicity of Subsidies and Public Aid of the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE), attached to the Ministry of Finance.
In this way, the December 14, 2022Sara Aagesen’s husband’s business received a grant from 6,000 euros of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Civil Service. The concessionary organization was the public commercial entity Red.es. And the call was based on “aid for the digitalization of Segment II companies (between three and less than 10 employees)” of the Digital Kit Program. It is worth remembering that Red.es is the public company to which Pedro Sánchez’s wife sent letters of recommendation, Begoña Gomezfor the Government to engage the company of its partner and guru of its chair, the Aragonese businessman, in two files. Carlos Barrabés.
On December 23, 2022, this company received additional 125,400 euros as a “loan” from National Investigation Agency (AEI)dependent on the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. In this case, this aid comes from decree CIN/1502/2021, of December 27, intended to finance “public-private collaboration projects (aid subject to the RGEC)”.
Likewise, the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, through the EOI Foundation (School of Industrial Organization), gave another grant of 39,900 euros at Te Consulting House 4 Plus SL on November 21, 2023. In this case, the grant was part of a call for support aimed at “promoting open innovation through the Activa Startups initiative in the framework of the Recovery Plan ». In total, the company of Aagesen’s husband and brother achieved at least 171,300 in public aid of government in just 11 months, himself being part of this executive as number three from Ribera.
The Fernández-Polanco family
The new minister and her husband coincided in March 2023 on a day with the title Biomethane in the ecological transitionorganized by CEOE-CEPYME Cantabria and which also served to pay tribute to Fernando Fernández-Polancoprofessor emeritus at the University of Valladolid, “world leader in environmental research”, and father-in-law of Aagese, who died in 2022.
This day was dedicated to addressing with “a high scientific and technical level everything related to this energy, one of the main alternatives that Cantabria has to diversify its sources and increase distributed production and energy autonomy”, according to the call.
The then State Secretary for Energy, Sara Aagesen, intervened institutional opennessand her husband participated a few hours later in the presentation entitled Practical cases of advanced digestion of WWTP sludge using thermal hydrolysis technology. Diego Fernández-Polanco, son of Fernando Fernández-Polanco, was presented as head of the company teCH4+.
Aagesen referred to his father-in-law as pioneer of biogas studies and to these entrepreneurs who opted for this type of energy when no one believed in it. “Today it is a necessary reference to complete the decarbonization of our productive systems and be more autonomous,” he said, referring to the situation of “the climate emergency we are experiencing”.
Faced with this, the current vice-president opted for the energy transition as a response, “where biogas is an essential element of this transition and has great potential in our country by contributing to the improvement of the environment”, to the circular economy, to the demographic challenge“, to the reduction of foreign dependence, to the generation of a productive fabric with a value chain that can be entirely developed in Spain and to the generation of jobs”, he said.
