The Congress has agreed, at the request of the PP, to request the creation of a technical table between the Ministry of Transport and the Xunta de Galicia in order to study the transformation of the Galician railway network from Iberian gauge to standard European gauge, with the aim of ensuring interoperability.
During the Transport and Sustainable Mobility Commission held this Tuesday, the popular deputy Celso Delgado criticized the report sent in July by the Ministry of Transport to the European Union, in which the adaptation of the 13,000 kilometers of Spanish conventional tracks to European gauge was ruled out due to an estimated cost of between 20,000 and 30,000 million and lasting 30 years of works.
According to Delgado, that document has generated "discontent and concern" in communities such as Galicia and Asturias, labeling it a "technical mistake." In this same line, the initiative also proposes to establish another technical table between the Principality and the Ministry to address the same issue.
The PP parliamentarian demands that, at least, priority be given to the adaptation to European gauge of 250 kilometers of track between the province of Ourense and Santiago, in order to connect with the Atlantic Axis. He points out that the interchange in Taboadela causes a "bottleneck" and a "technical barrier."
For her part, the Galician socialist deputy Patricia Otero has reproached the popular party for overlooking the part of the report that emphasizes the impracticality of maintaining the railway network under construction for three decades. She has also criticized the "hasty ideas" of the PP, with which, in her opinion, they intend to "disconnect Galicia from the freight traffic" of the other corridors that use the same gauge.
Likewise, Otero has called on the PP to demand that the Xunta improve the "deficient" operation of the bus lines that depend on the regional administration, with "passengers left stranded at stations" and "schedules that are not adequate."
In the same commission, the deputy from Vigo Manuel Lago (Sumar) has pointed out that he has been "surprised" by the PP's proposal, considering that it only aims to "shift the problem," "placing the interchange in Taboadela in Santiago de Compostela, at the nodal point of the Atlantic axis." Furthermore, he has reproached the popular party for wanting to "paralyze for many years" the traffic of passengers and goods due to the works on those 250 kilometers.