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On Tuesday I told you that the State must compensate for the damage that Renfe and Adif, as non-executive arms of the Ministry of Transport, were causing to the Catalan economy. We said that the commuter rail works aren't quick, fine, but the extraordinary financial compensation could be. Well, today it's news that The Government will demand that the State pay the bill for the railway chaos.What bill? Well, some items are very clear: the free commuter rail service decreed until the end of the month, or the cost of lifting the toll barriers on the C-32, or the cost of hiring information staff at the stations or buses and drivers for the commuter rail lines that now have to travel by bus.
But this goes much further when you have the port partially shut down because the Rubí tunnel is closed, something that The railway chaos has caused 23,000 tons of steel to accumulate in Portbou.We remind you that for every train that doesn't run, up to 42 trucks are needed. So, costs can skyrocket due to other factors that are difficult to quantify. We will be watching to see if the State actually compensates for the disaster it has caused in Catalonia.
Meanwhile, is anyone doing anything?
Yes, today we read that the number two in the ministry, who has been sent to settle in Catalonia, It has created a specific maintenance unit in the commuter rail system with the idea that it will act preventively through inspections.More than 600 points on the network have now been identified for inspection, along with work that should be carried out on 31 sections. Incidentally, the Renfe train drivers' strike is still scheduled for next week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I have the impression that there won't be much difference between a strike day and a normal day, meaning with computer outages and bus services. As we were saying today in the ARA newsroom, if they manage to enforce the minimum services, we'll have even more trains.
By the way, tomorrow is a moral victory for Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, and Clara Ponsatí. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) this morning annulled the European Parliament's March 2021 decision to remove the immunity of the then-MEPs from Junts at the request of the Supreme Court, which wanted to try them. Pay attention, then, because the highest court in Luxembourg has ruled contrary to the General Court of the European Union and the Advocate General of the CJEU, and has accepted the appeal of the former president of the Generalitat and the former ministers. As I said, it's a moral victory because none of the three are MEPs now, but it's also one step closer to the president's return to exile in the coming months.
Good morning.