Unidos Podemos has submitted a document to the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament in which it calls on Brussels to reverse the EU-wide policies opening up the rail sector to competition, following the recent Urda (Toledo) accident.
The initiative has been filed by the leader of IU and number three on the Unidos Podemos ticket for Madrid for the elections of 29N, Toni Valero, who asks the European Commission and the European Parliament itself to review in depth the regulatory framework of the railway system and to put an end to the process of liberalization of this means of transport.
In statements sent to the media, Valero has assured that in these elections Spain is playing a “model of a country” for the working class, and that an obvious example is the railways, which cannot be “subordinated to the market” or to the “profit of a few”.
“Our commitment is clear: a one-hundred-percent public railway,” Valero stressed, while also denouncing that the liberalization of the public sector “kills,” because it only responds to the logic of “capitalism with a rush”.
In the document filed, the congressman as well also asks the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament to analyze the impact of the liberalization of rail services on matters of safety and to promote measures so that management of the sector remains in public hands in its different areas.
At the same time, he urges the European Commission to provide “a detailed response on the effects of successive railway packages and their suitability for the objectives of safety, public service and cohesion”.
“The train is not to enrich private companies; it is to guarantee the right to mobility, connect our towns and cities, and provide a quality public service. It is also a fundamental tool for addressing the climate emergency,” he added, reproaching that social democrats and conservatives in the European sphere have promoted for decades the rail liberalization model.