Antoni Bassas's analysis: 'No train, no political power, shame and rage'

This morning at 8:30, Pere Macias, the Catalan government's commissioner for the transfer of commuter rail services, appeared before the media and announced that the Catalan government had decided to open an investigation into Renfe because it had left the entire country without trains, even though Adif (the Spanish railway infrastructure manager) had issued a certificate last night guaranteeing the safety of the tracks. For the government, Macias said this morning, this was intolerable.

To clarify: Renfe has left more than 400,000 people without trains because the train drivers are staging a covert strike. They have either stayed home or gone to work but haven't started the trains.

The result? No commuter trains scheduled, no medium-distance trains, alternative transport can't handle this avalanche of people, and the AP-7 motorway is closed southbound in Gelida because the embankment that collapsed Monday night was supporting the highway. So today, Catalonia is practically at a standstill. Yesterday, Minister Dalmau, acting as president, said that today wouldn't be "an easy day," which isn't saying much, because for years now, no day has been easy for the hundreds of thousands of people who have to take the state's trains. An example from today: passengers who left Tortosa early this morning bound for Barcelona arrived in Tarragona only to be told that it was the end of their journey, that the train would stop there. Congratulations to the winners. Oh, and work from home. And so on.

The Catalan government is opening an investigation because it has no other option. I'm not criticizing it, I'm just saying that it has no power over Renfe or Adif, or over the train drivers, or over state investments, which are fought over by everyone, regardless of who's in power, and are fought over by us. And none of those who make the decisions that affect us—Renfe, Adif, the train drivers, the Spanish government with its budgets—care much about whether the commuter rail service in Catalonia is running smoothly, because, as Errejón said,It's too far away for me."The State has spent years without investing, Renfe already has an excuse, Adif can't work without a budget, and the train drivers, who should be the most interested in solving the problems with the transfer to the Generalitat, have opposed it and are now staging a covert strike while awaiting the expected discovery of 11, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, and 10,000 and 10,000 million euros. It's a disgrace: they've left an entire country without trains for two days straight. This is unacceptable, because the price we've paid is that the Cercanías commuter rail isn't running. No, it's been over 20 years since the State budget should legally include an indefinite compensation fund. What this means about our political power is obvious and so sad that it's both shameful and infuriating."