Fomento and 40 other entities create a commission to find solutions to Catalan mobility

The Catalan employers' association Foment del Treball and forty other economic entities have launched the Commission for Guaranteeing Reliable and Efficient Everyday Mobility in Catalonia. This commission will study the causes behind the "critical situation" of Catalan infrastructure and offer solutions. The president of the Catalan employers' association, Josep Sánchez Llibre, stated during the press conference that "the current situation in Catalonia from a mobility perspective is unsustainable, intolerable, and unacceptable." The commission will include representatives from the Royal Automobile Club of Catalonia (RACC), the College of Economists of Catalonia, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, and the Chamber of Contractors of Catalonia, among other economic stakeholders. These representatives will attend bi-weekly hearings with relevant institutional officials. Sánchez Llibre emphasized that the goal of this working group is for it to be "open to everyone, with the intention of adding, not subtracting," and to generate a "positive and constructive" debate: "We don't want to point fingers, we're not here to criticize or destroy anything; mobility has a solution, and we will find it together." In addition to these hearings—where they will seek the participation of figures from the Department of Territory, the Ministry of Transport, the Cercanías commuter rail network, and Adif (the Spanish railway infrastructure manager)—the commission will also prepare reports analyzing the current situation and present proposals for the future. It will also investigate the current state of the infrastructure deficit and, finally, examine how many resources are needed to address it. The employers' association estimates the accumulated structural deficit in infrastructure between 2009 and 2023 at 42.5 billion euros. Results in October

The commission's work will begin now and will last until September of this year. Its conclusions are expected to be published in October, and the body will be coordinated by Lluís Moreno, president of the Catalan Chamber of Construction Contractors (CCOC) and vice president of Foment del Treball. In addition to Moreno and Sánchez Llibre, the presentation also included the president of the RACC (Royal Automobile Club of Catalonia), Josep Mateu; the managing director of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Roger Guasch; and the dean of the College of Economists of Catalonia, Carles Puig de Travy. Mateu lamented that the administrations have not provided "reliable answers" to crises such as the Cercanías commuter rail crisis and criticized the fact that during the term of Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, there have been as many as three presidents of Renfe (the Spanish national railway company), which generates a lack of "credibility and trust." For his part, Puig de Travy stressed that leaders must adopt a "forward-thinking approach" because "without adequate mobility, it is impossible for Catalonia to move forward," and estimated the impact of deficient mobility infrastructure at 1.5 percent of Catalonia's GDP.