Government and Generalitat address the transfer of Rodalies and pending investments in infrastructure

The “total transfer” of Rodalies claimed by the Generalitat and the debts associated with the third additional provision of the Statute will be the protagonists of a new meeting of the bilateral infrastructure commission that the central and Catalan governments will hold this Friday in Madrid. It will be the first meeting that has been held since 2018 and comes a few days after ERC has agreed to transfer Rodalies in exchange for its support for the General State Budgets for 2022.

Specifically, there will be a debate on the transfer of funds to finance Renfe’s operations in the services of Suburbs and Regionals, as well as the transfer of rolling stock and workers to the Generalitat. According to ERC, the agreement with the Government includes initiating the procedures to carry out the “full transfer” of the management of Rodalies to the Generalitat.

At the meeting, which will be chaired by the Secretary of State for Transport, Isabel Pardo de Vera, and the vice president of the Government and ‘minister’ of Territori, Jordi Puigneró. the encyst is not intended to be treated Barcelona-El Prat airport expansion or how to finance the highways once this year there are no more tolls on four Catalan roads (the AP-2, the AP-7, the C-32 Nord and the C-33).

This will be the case because this bilateral infrastructure is born from the Third additional provision of the Statute, which establishes that the investment of the State in Catalonia in terms of infrastructure should be equated, between 2007 and 2013, to the percentage of GDP contributed by the Catalan autonomy to the State coffers.

Outstanding debts

The aforementioned third additional provision of the Statute, however, was only fulfilled in 2007 (the payment of 335 million euros was executed in 2010), while in 2011 the Government and Generalitat calculated the 2008 deficit in 759 million, a disbursement not yet made in full.

Of these 759 million, last August the payment of 200 million was agreed before the end of the year, so the disbursement of another 559 million remains to be finalized. In parallel, the deficit corresponding to the exercises 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, which will be another of the topics that will be discussed this Friday.

On the table will also be the debate on the transfer of Rodalies, since Puigneró has already said repeatedly that “this must be the legislature of Rodalies or Rodalies”, reinterpreting the “referendum or referendum” launched by the then ‘president’ Carles Puigdemont in the legislature of 1-O.

“Traspaso ‘fake'”

“Only by managing schedules and rates can the citizens of Catalonia be given the service they deserve,” lamented Puigneró, who intends to leave behind the “fake transfer” of 2008 and complete it, also being able to manage staff and rolling stock.

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The Minister of Transport, Rachel Sanchez, has said to date that “it is not on the table” to deepen the transfer of Rodalies and has limited the discussion to “being able to resolve the issue of the transfer of economic and financial resources so that the Generalitat can proceed to the payment of the services operated by Renfe directly through a program contract “.

Finally, the Government will transfer to the Generalitat the degree of execution of investments collected in the 2021 Budgets and what the 2022 accounts foresee, which have just been approved in Congress.