Antoni Bassas' analysis: 'The week the shamelessness of the State in Catalonia has exploded'

The commuter rail service has resumed this morning.Trains are running, not with the same frequency on all lines, after two days of nationwide strikes by train drivers. Yesterday, only 6 out of 140 drivers showed up for work. While drivers in Andalusia did strike, those in Catalonia did. In the early morning, trains ran, but with delays and few passengers. This is understandable: if trains aren't running on Wednesday, and then again on Thursday, how can anyone expect them to run on Friday?

The damage is extensive. In human terms, one person has died, a train driver. Socially, hundreds of thousands of people have been left stranded, unable to live their normal lives. From an economic standpoint, the cost of this chaos is enormous, and now discussions are beginning about whether companies or workers should pay for the hours lost due to the state's actions. We've reached the point where someone forced out of Barcelona and the metropolitan area by the high cost of housing, who now needs to find work in Barcelona, ​​will have to pay out of their own pocket or use vacation days for the hours the state prevented them from working. Politically, it has become clear that the Catalan government has no power over Renfe, Adif, or the Ministry, and that Minister Dalmau acted rashly when he suggested that service would resume yesterday.

Today is a day for reflection, a day for a society in pain. We know the causes of this debacle by heart, but it bears repeating. The State has carried out half of the planned investment in railways in Catalonia. Don't miss out. This work by Xavier Grau del Cerro that we are publishing todayBetween 2010 and 2023, only half of the budgeted money was invested. It doesn't matter whether the PP or the PSOE was in power. It doesn't matter whether the Generalitat was led by Convergència, separatists, or socialists with the support of Esquerra i Comuns. In round numbers, they failed to invest 5 billion of the 10 billion budgeted, and we're talking about Renfe (the trains) and Adif (the tracks), combined. In absolute numbers, Adif failed to invest much more than Renfe. And you still have to hear Minister Puente say that there will be no complete transfer of the Cercanías commuter rail system to the Generalitat, "because it would be fragmenting something that interconnects us all." Interconnects? What kind of bad joke is this? During this same period, Catalonia's commuter rail service has gone from 6 million to 8 million passengers. And a lot of people have had to move far away from their jobs.

Good morning.