Javier Garcia San Martín - FAGOR GROUP

'The presence of Basque is very important in our cooperatives’

Eight cooperatives make up the Fagor Group: Onera, Fagor Electrónica, Fagor Arrasate, Fagor Automation, Galbaian, Copreci, Assembly and Ederlan. Founded 60 years ago in the Alto Deba area, the Fagor Group is the largest industrial cooperative in the Basque Country, with almost 11,000 workers. Machine tools, automation and the automotive industry are just some of the areas in which the group's cooperatives operate. We spoke to Javier García San Martín, Managing Director of Copreci.

San Martín explained that the Fagor Group is present in 18 different countries, ‘we are all over the world trying to provide the best possible service to our customers.’

The Group has The Fagor 2023 sustainability strategy, which has five main lines: ‘transforming our business, developing a democratic model of governance, developing an advanced business culture, reducing the environmental impact of our products and production processes and promoting the self-constitution of society. This sustainability plan shows us the way and helps us to guide the next steps for this territory and this community'.

We are now talking about the Basque language. Javier San Martín states that the presence of Basque in the Fagor Group has always been very high ‘The Basque Language Commissions started out 50 years ago. And we have created Basque Language Plans every year for the past 25 years. The presence of Basque is very important in our cooperatives.’

In relation to INDEUS, a platform of which the Fagor Group is a member, San Martín assures that ‘It gives us the opportunity to see that we are not alone in the world, that our challenges and those of other companies are similar, as are our difficulties’.