The expansion of the Barajas airport announced by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, as “the largest investment in the last decade” in airport infrastructure, has been harshly criticized by the PSOE partner in the Executive, who has called the project a “economic and ecological nonsense.”
Sumar’s deputy and future spokesperson for the group in Congress, Íñigo Errejón, has argued his party’s rejection of the expansion of the Madrid airport, warning that it means “returning to past models.”
Errejón has emphasized that the government agreement between PSOE and Sumar aimed to replace short flights with the train to structure the country not only radially, as well as to decarbonize the economy and advance “quickly and with ambition” in the ecological transition. “Environmentalism begins at home, it is not just to take photos at international summits,” the leader of Más País also reprimanded via Twitter, insisting that the expansion of Barajas is a “nonsense.”
Errejón, who has also made statements to the Sixth, has gone so far as to compare the Barajas expansion proposal of the PSOE with the announcement of the arrival of Formula 1 to Madrid made by the president of the Madrid PP, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “It is the old culture of hitting the ball, which is always said to be very good because it will create many jobs… but let’s be serious, there are other ways to generate jobs that also address the needs of citizens and the community.” fight against climate change. Isn’t it more urgent that the citizens of Extremadura have a decent train? Or that the metropolitan areas of Madrid and Barcelona have more frequent Cercanías trains?” he asked.
“Both proposals,” Errejón expanded, “generate wealth but at the same time combat climate change.” “One cannot be an environmentalist at times,” he stressed, paraphrasing the second vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz.
Likewise, Sumar’s feminism spokesperson and member of the party’s provisional Executive, Elizabeth Duval, has also shown her opposition to this measure, given that “it makes no sense to continue with Spain is Different and mass tourism as vocation”.
“The times demand something else. What Spain needs is not airport expansions, but industrialization, ecological transition and a profound transformation of the economic model,” he concluded.
For its part, Verdes Equo, a formation that is part of the Sumar coalition, has described the expansion of Bajaras as “climate irresponsibility.” The co-spokesperson of the environmental group and member of the provisional Executive of Sumar, Florent Marcellesi, has stated that it is “incomprehensible” that Sánchez announces this investment and then that the already real effects of climate change must be mitigated.
“A sustainable and fair future, like the one that the PSOE has committed to guarantee in the Government agreement with Sumar, involves exactly the opposite: reducing air travel and betting on rail transport. From Verdes Equo, as part of Add up, we ask for coherence in the face of the climate emergency,” he concluded.
