The spokesperson for Junts in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, reiterated this Monday that she cannot conceive of any outcome other than the resignation of the Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, and has again demanded that the railways, trains, and the necessary funds be handed over to Catalonia so that it is the Generalitat that assumes management of the rail system.
This is what she stated in an interview on "La Mirada Crítica" on Telecinco, reported by Europa Press, where she recalled that her formation already demanded the minister’s resignation last Friday. Nogueras said she does not know whether someone pushed her to resign, but she believes the decision comes from Puente himself: "what had to happen, I can’t imagine any other scenario."
Along these lines, she avoided assessing whether it is credible that the minister told Pedro Sánchez about his departure only a few minutes before making it public. In her view, "it doesn’t matter how he has resigned" because she understands that his management has not been appropriate. As an example, she mentioned that during the last standing committee, there was a collision in Martorell involving a machine.
For Nogueras, this kind of incidents are the "sum of many years of underinvestment, centralization, and lack of planning." For this reason, she insisted that Junts demands "the full transfer of everything, the tracks the trains and the resources" to Catalonia, so that everything is directed from "closeness."
"The part about how it has been (the resignation) doesn’t interest us; what interests us is that the work is done with rigor," she stressed, emphasizing that Puente himself acknowledged "a very large underinvestment" and the absence of planning for years.
When asked whether Catalonia is prepared to take on this alleged "poisoned" gift of the rail system and the Generalitat’s capacity to respond, Nogueras took aim at the Govern of Salvador Illa, which she sees as being in charge but "very absent in all this."
In any case, she admitted that the failings of the network will not be resolved "from one day to the next" because "there have been so many years of underinvestment and poor planning" that it has led to "a collapsed service."
Professionalization versus politicization of the railway
In the face of the situation of Rodalíes and the AVE, Nogueras has defended that Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat de Cataluña “does indeed work” and maintains high levels of punctuality and absence of incidents. He has detailed that, in yesterday’s session, of the 19 Cercanías lines in Catalonia, 15 registered problems and 6 of them were serious, while on Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat “zero” incidents were recorded. In addition, he has pointed out that Renfe’s punctuality is around 30 percent, compared with 98 percent for Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat.
According to the spokesperson for Junts, the key that distinguishes Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat from Renfe is the “professionalization” of its teams, while at Renfe “committees of friends” have been consolidated for years. “The big difference is the professionalization and not the politicization of public services,” he has emphasized.
Regarding the possibility that Junts’ votes end up aligning with the right-wing bloc, Nogueras has clarified that his party does not share the problem of other formations because it does not have to “change narratives,” since they continue “where always,” focused on “doing the job well away from the disputes of the Spanish blocs.”
In this regard, he has insisted that his priority is that “Catalonia be” and he has stressed that in his territory people do not vote thinking about whether Feijóo or Sánchez will govern, “but that it is Catalonia” with greater weight and presence.