The central government must now promote infrastructure that is “fundamental for the development and cohesion of our regions.” That is the main message that the popular governments and business leaders of the Valencian Community, Aragon, La Rioja, Castilla y León and Cantabria launched this Thursday from Logroño during the celebration of the Forum to Promote the Cantabrian-Mediterranean Corridor.
The idea of ??connecting the ports of Valencia with those of the Cantabrian Sea by rail has decades of history, although it was in 2004 when the then Minister of Public Works, Magdalena Álvarez, announced its promotion. But after 20 years, the communities involved complain that the plan accumulates numerous delays in its different phases. While the section that connects Zaragoza with Sagunto via Teruel is still undergoing electrification work, the link between the Aragonese capital with the port of Bilbao passing through Pamplona and Vitoria has barely begun to be planned.
Faced with this situation, representatives of the five communities led by popular governments (Basque Country and Navarra, governed by PNV and PSOE respectively, were absent) joined their voices today in the capital of Rioja to reactivate their demands on an axis whose breadth represents around 25 % of national gross domestic product (GDP).
At its conclusion, the five convening business organizations signed a declaration in which they urge the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility of Oscar Puentes to prepare a national Transport plan that results in a railway infrastructure plan for the period 2025-2040 that contemplates as “a priority axis” to the Cantabrian-Mediterranean corridor.
Likewise, they agree to carry out a study of potential and contemplate “in the medium term” the necessary investments to provide all sections of this corridor with the technical and operational characteristics of the “most modern possible” conventional line: electrified double track and with new transport equipment. signaling, loads of 22.5 tons per axle, sidings of 750 meters, etc. The objective is to raise traffic speeds to 200 kilometers per hour, as well as guarantee access to large logistics nodes such as Plaza, in the Aragonese capital.
At the meeting, which hosted different talks and presentations about the railway sector and its supporting role, the political representatives reeled off their list of grievances. The president of La Rioja, Gonzalo Capellán, claimed the connection given that the communication deficits that they drag “weigh down the potential and development” of the territories gathered there, something that also affects “the potential of the Spanish economy as a whole.”
“This is a serious issue, fundamental in the face of a disoriented national policy, far from the issues that really matter. We need to give it impetus so that the importance of the corridor is reorganized,” he added.
The Aragonese president, Jorge Azcón, was more vehement, for whom his demands are “fair and necessary”, and who charged against the absence of representatives of the ministry and Adif at the meeting despite having been invited. “We have a tremendous elephant in the room: the real debate in the ministry today is about the transfer of the Rodalies to Catalonia and not about the Cantabrian-Mediterranean corridor,” he criticized.
Likewise, he took the opportunity to criticize the accumulation of delays both in time and in investments to give life to the “backbone of the peninsula” that this network of networks represents. “It is inconceivable that the third and fourth cities in Spain (Valencia and Zaragoza) are not connected by a high-capacity road,” he stressed.
For her part, the Valencian Infrastructure Minister, Salomé Pradas, pointed out that the work accumulates “too many pending issues” and “unjustified delays”, while she pointed out that they are doing their part with the start of the works on the intermodal platform of Sagunto. “We demand that the Government think about opportunities that are being hindered to structure the country from north to east,” she added.
From Cantabria, they denounced the lack of investments in the port and the lack of good rail connections with the rest of the large cities. “We are an island on the Cantabrian coast. (…) It takes more than three hours by train to cover the 100 kilometers that separate Santander from Bilbao,” complained its Public Works Minister, Roberto Media.
