The fire at the Gavà railway interlock, which has turned the Vilanova de Rodalies line upside down for a week, has become much more than an incident that affects thousands of passengers every day. The serious incident has become the reason for a political dispute between the ERC and the PSC, which will surely lead the race to the polls on 28-M in Catalonia. So much so that the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, wanted to start the week of the beginning of the electoral campaign at ground zero of the railway chaos.
Those responsible for the railway infrastructure administrator (Adif) have accompanied Aragonès to the booth that houses the railway signaling set on fire just a week ago and have explained the possible causes and the development of the repair tasks, which will take a minimum of three weeks.
Although minutes before they had conveyed the message that the catenary was in perfect condition and that it was lightning or another fortuitous event that caused the fire in Gavà , Aragonès has left specific explanations for the technicians. “For me, what is relevant is the political framework behind it,” he assured, right after attributing the incidence to the historical lack of investment in the Rodalies network.
“It has not been a political priority of the Spanish governments, neither of those of before nor of the one of now”, has assured the president of the Generalitat. Aragonès has also regretted that Minister Raquel Sánchez has not yet visited the breakdown “despite having it next to home, never better said”, in reference to the fact that the current Minister of Transport was mayor of Gavà for seven years and it is her municipality of home.
Aragonès’s criticisms have focused on the current government by insisting that the current incidents in the service are “the responsibility of the socialist government in Moncloa”, which he has reproached for not making decisions about the necessary investments. But these words have found their reply in the leader of the opposition and first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, who has asked the president to avoid confrontation and bet on “collaborative dynamics” in terms of mobility.
In fact, in this folder there are still pending issues that the socialist leader and Aragonès agreed on regarding the current budgets that the head of the Catalan Executive has not yet executed, such as the agreement to sign with the central government to unravel the B-40 between Terrssa, Sabadell and Castellar del Vallès.
In the case of Rodalies, Illa has defended that “we are in a moment of recovering the abandonment -investor- of recent years”. Thus, the Government has already executed 1,000 million euros to improve the service in Catalonia and has committed another 2,000 million until 2025, explained the leader of the PSC, but “complaining will not solve it, collaborating will,” he remarked.
This collaboration is what allowed, according to Illa, an agreement for the budgets with the Government that included several measures in terms of mobility, both in the area of ​​Rodalies, as in the metro, or in road matters. The most renowned of them was the one that should allow the works of the B-40 to be carried out sooner rather than later, on which ERC agreed despite a strong internal refusal. The deadline to sign the agreement with the Government to build the road (March 31) has expired and although Illa was flexible with the deadline in order to comply with the agreement, the Government “is too late.”
“Aragonès is risking his credibility” with this matter, they warn the PSC, after Illa has once again demanded that the president comply once and for all with this and with the other six agreements that should have already been fulfilled.
The Catalan socialists believe that ERC wants this campaign to revolve around Rodalies because “they are in free fall” and “that is why they do political electoralism”, because “they have nothing else to hold on to”, but “in politics you can lose it everything except credibility,” they warn.
