The spokesperson for Adelante Andalucía, José Ignacio García, has called for an "independent and transparent" investigation into the Urda (Toledo) accident and into the state of the railway network that connects Madrid with Andalucía. At the same time, he has reiterated his call for the resignation of the Minister of Transport and Mobility, Óscar Puente, and has urged the launch of an "urgent" plan to strengthen buses and airline routes that compensates for the mobility problems derived from the accident.
"Andalucía right now is disconnected at the railway level, isolated and once again, as we went through for months after the Adamuz accident," he stated this Tuesday in a press conference before the media at the Andalusian Parliament.
In his speech, García demanded a "radical transformation" of the railway system in the community, accompanied by a policy of affordable prices on planes and buses while the lack of train connections persists. In his view, "the feeling we have is that, because it is Andalucía, nothing happens, they will fix it, they will manage somehow. Well no, we are fed up already".
The leader of Adelante has shown his support for railway professionals and has censured the central Executive for "intending to place the responsibility for the accident exclusively on a single person". He recalled that "the workers of Adif and Renfe have been mobilizing for years denouncing the management, the cuts, the lack of resources and now all the responsibility is intended to be placed on a single worker, it seems infamous to us from a government that claims to be left-wing".
In this context, he insisted that Puente must leave office as the "political responsible" for the incident. "We are not going to fall into the hypocrisy of one side and the other. A political responsible person has to be up to the level of his people, up to the level of the citizenry," he emphasized.
According to García, "the right wing and the far right are being played into when political responsibilities are not assumed, when one is not up to the level of our people," while he stressed that his party has made itself available to the victims.
The spokesperson defended "a 100% public railway system" and demanded the "halt of the liberalization process" of the train. In his view, "the liberalization of the train approved by the PSOE and by the PP, of course with Vox too, has failed. Their model of privatizing public services has failed and has more than 100 dead on its back".
In relation to the line between Andalucía and Madrid, he has questioned that "two accidents have occurred on the Andalucía-Madrid line why? why was Andalucía the only high-speed line that had not changed the safety system? why have we normalized the safety system of that line going down 170 times and the minister seeing it as normal? There are unanswered questions", he concluded.