If the Frente Amplio gains enough strength after 29N, it will abandon the acceleration of the AVE Barcelona-Madrid and allocate the €1.333 billion committed to Rodalies. This was announced by Minister Ernest Urtasun.
The proposal comes during an informational breakfast organized by Nueva Economía Forum, as reported by diariosigloxxi.com. The Minister of Culture and number 2 on the Comuns-Frente Amplio candidacy for Barcelona in the general elections asserts that his party will request to abandon the goal of having the train between Barcelona and Madrid running at 350 kilometres per hour.
The money reserved for that project, €1.333 billion according to Urtasun himself, would go entirely to the Rodalies network. The event was hosted by the Minister of Social Rights and campaign spokesperson for the Frente Amplio, Pablo Bustinduy.
Urtasun argues that the expansion of high-speed rail should be organised by priorities, and that improving the Barcelona-Madrid line is not among the most urgent. In his words:
“What good does it do us to arrive a few minutes earlier in Madrid, while the majority of Catalans continue to lose hours and hours waiting for Rodalies?”
When asked if he would run for the Ministry of Transport in a new government, he replied that he wouldn't mind and that it is a portfolio that “would be good for” Spain in the hands of the Frente Amplio. He also recalled that the State Government has been with the party for almost eight years, so in his opinion, they are prepared to manage any area.
In the realm of railway management, the minister proposes reversing the consequences of liberalisation, rethinking the separation of Adif and Renfe, and revoking the outsourcing of network maintenance. He also maintains that restoring confidence in high-speed rail requires investigating what happened in the train accident and increasing investment in maintenance.
Urtasun also links the strengthening of Rodalies to a change in priorities affecting the Barcelona Airport, which he opposes, and the R-Aeroport shuttle. Regarding the transfer of the network to the Generalitat, he commits to speeding it up, although without specifying timelines for the intervention.
When asked about the possibility of repeating the current government, the minister replied that yes, but conditioned on the Frente Amplio achieving a notable result. Regarding the alleged corruption cases surrounding the PSOE, he criticised the socialists' response:
“We do not like at all what has been said by the socialist orbit when corruption cases have emerged, which is that zero corruption is inevitable.”
On housing issues, Urtasun placed the topic among the campaign priorities and wished success to the general strike on November 11, whose central theme is precisely housing. The following day, the Permanent Deputation of Congress will vote on the housing decrees, and he requested support from Junts.
The minister also warned that a hypothetical government of the PP and Vox would pursue Catalan, and criticised the proposal by Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo to limit the use of co-official languages in Congress. He directly addressed the PP candidate for Barcelona, Xavier García Albiol, to ask him about that measure.
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