The transfer of Rodalies has started the journey. It will be long and will surely be full of unexpected incidents like those that happen in the rail service, but it seems that it has the necessary political momentum to become a reality. The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, and the Minister of Territories, Ester Capella, showed yesterday understanding, joint commitment and the desire to make things happen in the first meeting of the political commission that must channel the transfer.
The two parties want to make it clear that they are ready to realize the integral transfer of Rodalies agreed between socialists and republicans in the investiture agreement of Pedro Sánchez. “We are not here to wrap up the exchange”, Puente made it clear leaving the meeting, in a joint appearance with Capella. The two lecterns together are already a declaration of intent after many years with the minister’s predecessors appearing on the one hand, and those of the minister, on the other.
“Neither the Spanish Government nor the Generalitat stop working for a single day on the concretization of the transfer, we are in a constant and permanent dialogue”, insisted Puente, reluctant to put red dates on the calendar that will later be overtaken by reality. Even so, the signed document establishes a deadline of six months to draw up a proposal for draft statutes of the Rodalies de Catalunya joint venture. They should be ready at the end of September and these statutes will define the constitution of the board of directors, with half representatives of the Spanish Government and the other half of the Generalitat, with the Catalan side as president.
He will also have to define other more thorny aspects of the transfer, such as that of material resources and personnel. Puente hastened to make it clear that they had transferred the information to the unions, aware of the rejection this issue causes among the workers of the public company. The same document signed yesterday by the two parties makes it clear that “the new commercial company will have a collaboration and cooperation agreement with Renfe that ensures labor mobility between the two and the maintenance of acquired rights”.
The creation of the new joint venture that will take over from Renfe as manager of Rodalies will be the first challenge of the working groups that will be set up during the first quarter of the year. There will be six sectoral technical commissions in charge of shaping the future transfer. In addition to the one mentioned about the transfer of the manager, there will be working groups for railway services, the Neighborhood Plan, the transfer of infrastructure, economic affairs and legal-administrative affairs. While all the previous ones will be sectoral, the latter will have a more transversal role to accompany the steps being taken in the transfer of skills.
The political commission of which Minister Puente and Councilor Capella are part will monitor and validate the progress of the deployment. Apart from the joint venture, progress is also expected throughout this year in the economic transfer, one of the simplest issues to make a reality. It is simply a question of making the Spanish Government transfer to the Generalitat the economic items corresponding to the operating deficit that it currently pays directly to Renfe. It is also intended to develop a communication improvement protocol. “Our commitment is to start the new stage by improving communication with a better treatment towards the user”, promised Capella.
In the longer term, throughout this year, the study of the infrastructures to be transferred is expected to be completed. Priority will be given to the Maresme line (R1) and the Garraf (R2) and Vic (R3) lines will be prepared. By 2025, the transfer of the sections that are considered relevant and a review of the investments planned for the second five-year period of the Neighborhood Plan, corresponding to the period 2026-2030, must be scheduled.
