Puente, regarding the commuter rail service: "It's a terrible service, but we're working to fix it."

MadridTwo train accidents with 46 deaths and rail chaos in Catalonia. These were the two issues that Transport Minister Óscar Puente was forced to address before the Senate on Thursday, at the urging of the People's Party. His appearance followed the expected script—the minister defended his handling of the situation—but gradually became increasingly heated. According to Puente, neither the Adamuz accident, which claimed 45 lives, nor the Gelida accident, which resulted in the death of a train driver, was related to the maintenance of the rail network carried out by Adif and his ministry. However, regarding the recent chaos on Catalan trains, the Transport Minister offered some self-criticism. "The commuter rail service is terrible, but we are working to correct it," the minister acknowledged in response to Junts senator Eduard Pujol, with whom he had a tense exchange after Pujol repeatedly called for his resignation. "I'm not deaf, you don't need to tell me to resign again," the minister retorted.

The Minister of Transport expressed his indignation that Junts had lumped the PSOE and the PP together, and responded that the Catalan rail network is currently the Ministry of Transport's top recipient of investment—although this is not the case in terms of actual construction. "What do you prefer? Madrid's projects or the millions for Catalonia? I would prefer the millions for Catalonia," Puente said. "The commuter rail system is in very bad shape, nobody denies that, but we are investing to fix the situation," the minister continued, even expressing nostalgia for CiU and criticizing what he sees as Junts's rhetoric being similar to that of Aliança Catalana. To bolster his argument, Puente cited data such as the fact that all the trains in the Principality were purchased by Socialist governments and none by PP administrations: "In Catalonia there has been disinvestment and neglect, but that's not the situation now. We are not all equally responsible."

The minister's response did not convince Eduard Pujol, who insisted on the lack of implementation of investments in recent years, also under Socialist governments. "Jordi Pujol and Soley would have endorsed every one of my statements [...]. I will rarely give speeches as aligned with Convergence as today's," retorted the senator, also visibly agitated. "Read Pujol and you'll know which political tradition I'm rooting in." For Eduard Pujol, "both the AVE high-speed train and the commuter rail have failed." "It's your fault," he snapped at the minister, adding: "If you don't resign now, when will you? Minister, don't pull a Mazón."

Esquerra has also been critical of the minister's management and has warned that if there is now more investment, it is due to pressure from the Republicans. "We come from a very precarious situation and we need the investments to translate into practical results," said Senator Sara Bailac, in addition to demanding that the transfer of the commuter rail service be finalized once and for all. "You have resigned de facto "Nothing that has happened in the last week with the commuter rail chaos has been enough for him to travel and take charge of this chaotic crisis," he lamented. The minister asked for understanding: "Since last week I've been sleeping three hours a day. We couldn't all leave, so we split up to try to deal with the Adamuz and commuter rail accident," he summarized, alluding to the presence in Barcelona of the Secretary of State, José Antonio Santano. He also mentioned the recent damage to the wall that collapsed onto the tracks. He reminded everyone that this wall does not belong to Adif, although it also falls under his ministry's jurisdiction.

Regarding Adamuz, the first thing Puente did was to provide a timeline of the events leading up to the accident and defended Adif's management and maintenance of the tracks. According to the Minister of Transport, the section of track in Córdoba where the accident occurred "is neither abandoned nor neglected," thus ruling out any connection between the accident and the state of the infrastructure. In this respect, Puente left the causes of the track failure unclear, stating that at this time "no hypothesis is being ruled out," despite the ongoing investigation by the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF). It focuses on rail welding. "I haven't hidden away in some private room at a restaurant; I've faced the music. I'll be there at the funeral, with my head held high. I've fulfilled my obligations," he stated emphatically, referring to the crisis caused by the DANA storm with Carlos Mazón. However, as expected, the explanations haven't convinced the right wing, which has demanded he back down. The People's Party (PP) has directly accused Puente of lying about the accident and the railway chaos: "It's political negligence." The PP's theory is that the cause of the Adamuz accident lies in the "deficient" track maintenance, which wasn't completely renewed, but rather "partially." They allude to the weld that joined an old and a new section in the accident area, which is the focus of the investigations: "The only solid weld is the one that connects him to Pedro Sánchez," said Senator Antonio Silván. Paloma Gómez, from the Vox party, has said that the Adamuz accident is not only "a human tragedy," but also a "political failure and there are those responsible": "You are a bad person," she went so far as to say.

The groups have put on the targetBut Puente has the support of Spanish President Pedro Sánchez. The PP had also requested that the PSOE leader appear before Parliament regarding the accidents, but he refused to do so in the Senate and will appear in Congress on February 11. "If the President of Spain doesn't come to the Senate with 45 fatalities, when should he come? He is a cowardly president when it comes to the truth, cruel to the victims, and despotic towards the Catalan Parliament," said PP Senator Alícia Garcia at the start of the session. But the offensive by Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party didn't end there. They also registered a commission of inquiry into the railway system. This initiative has drawn criticism of Minister Puente: "For what strange reason is a commission of inquiry necessary now with 45 victims, but not with 80 in 2013?" they asked the PP, alluding to the Angrois train accident, which, unlike the Adams tragedy, they managed.