The PSOE and Frente Amplio have defended a reinforcement of investment in the rail system in order to recover public trust after the tragedies in Adamuz (Córdoba) and Urda (Toledo), while PP and Vox have attacked the management of infrastructure by the Government and have called for an exhaustive audit of the state of the network.
These opposing positions on infrastructure have been put on the table this Friday during a four-way economic debate on "La Sexta", in which the first deputy prime minister and Minister of Economics, Carlos Cuerpo (PSOE); the Minister of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs, Pablo Bustinduy (Frente Amplio); the PP’s deputy secretary for Finance, Juan Bravo; and Vox’s economic spokesperson, José María Figaredo, took part.
The first to take the floor was Carlos Cuerpo, who began his intervention with a tribute to the victims of Adamuz and Urda and took the opportunity to announce the creation of a technical commission tasked with preparing a "white paper" of recommendations for the rail system, with the intention that it serve as the basis for a future State Pact on infrastructure.
Cuerpo, who has also assumed Transport’s responsibilities after Óscar Puente’s resignation, emphasized that his priority is "to recover trust" in the railway, acknowledging that it has been seriously damaged after the two incidents, which have left more than a hundred fatalities.
In this regard, he has committed to carrying out all necessary actions to prevent similar episodes from recurring and to strengthen rail safety as much as possible, following the recommendations of the Railway Safety Agency and paying special attention to the demands of the train drivers.
Bustinduy calls for more funding for Cercanías
For his part, Bustinduy also began with a tribute to the victims and insisted on the need to increase the resources allocated to the railway in order to restore trust in the system.
He has proposed that the 13,000 million euros that, according to his calculations, are expected for airport expansions be redirected, in addition to maintenance work, to the Cercanías train. He has also questioned the effect that the liberalization of high-speed rail has had on the network.
"It cannot be that, with public resources of all, those infrastructures are made available to foreign companies that what they come here to do is do business with them. The railway has to be a public service," he has emphasized.
PP attacks the management of the Executive
During the PP turn, Juan Bravo has focused his message on criticizing the Government’s actions in this area. "Lack of management has led to the AVE, which was a benchmark, a brand for Spain, having become fear for all Spaniards," he said.
The popular leader has linked that "bad management" to the absence of the General State Budgets throughout the entire legislative term and has recalled that the former minister Puente, when presenting his resignation, admitted that the lack of new public accounts "prevented him from investing more."
Bravo has also reproached that the Sustainable Mobility Law, published in the Official State Gazette in December 2025, already included the obligation to carry out an audit of the condition of the tracks that, as he has denounced, has still not been carried out.
As a proposal, he has promised an investment of 300,000 million euros over a fifteen-year horizon if the PP reaches Government. Cuerpo has responded by questioning that promise and recalling that in previous PP administrations "the first thing they cut were infrastructures."
Vox accuses the Government of corruption and demands an audit
From Vox, Figaredo has been the only one who did not start his intervention with a remembrance of the victims. He began by attacking the Government’s management and has denounced that investment in infrastructures has fallen "significantly" to levels that are "dangerous," adding: "The corruption of this Government kills," in reference to the former Transport minister, José Luis Ábalos.
Next, he reproached Cuerpo and Bustinduy that, after the accidents in Adamuz and Urda, they decided "to do nothing." Asked about the specific measures that Vox would promote if it were to govern, Figaredo defended carrying out an audit of the network and committed to investing "whatever it takes," although without specifying amounts.