There are people who manage their silences and there are those who manage compulsive tweets on social media. This is the case of the socialist Óscar Puente, who lives very comfortably in his role as enfant terrible of the council of ministers, witty scourge of the PP and cheerleader for Pedro Sánchez. About the daily problems of the suburban rail service or the hundreds of people that the high-speed rail has left at Sants Station, what can you tell him. The other day he wrote: "They don't know how to fix it [...]. The sacrifice is always asked of the same people". He was referring to Feijóo, but if we didn't know that he is incapable of self-criticism we would have thought he was talking about himself, because, in effect, they don't know how to fix it, and the sacrifice is always asked of the same workers who every morning have to play the roulette of the train lottery.

This disaster of Rodalies and Adif in Catalonia is no longer about an investment problem that requires years of work to recover from decades of neglect. The problem is that Rodalies is not a real entity with a common project, but a scattered set of tracks, catenaries, trains, unions, companies, and governments, with everyone only concerned with their own piece. At the risk of it being too early for metaphysics, the problem with Rodalies in Catalonia is that it has no soul. Those who work there with a spirit of service must not have power, and those who have power must not have a spirit of service.

After Pedro Sánchez's call for elections, Spanish television stations have increased the level of political tension. Even Ana Rosa Quintana, who has been demanding the end of the legislature for years, seemed angry when the moment finally arrived. She has been indignant at any decision by Sánchez for so many months that on the day her wishes came true, she did not know how to change her mood. How difficult it is to stop the informative hamster wheel when you have been pushing it by inertia for so many years.

The People's Party is already muddying the electoral pre-campaign. And the chosen strategy, common among the right-wing, is to opt for social media. This Monday, the same day that Pedro Sánchez called early general elections for November 29th, the PP published a video on X against the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente. The tweet was a response to a post by the socialist in which he claimed that Feijóo "was already feeling the fear." The reaction of the populars was to publish a video from when the minister tore his quadriceps in 2023: "You were the one who was afraid of a sprain," they wrote.

The Spanish right and far-right are determined to torpedo the so-called grandchildren law, the provision that the Spanish government included in the Democratic Memory Law so that the descendants of exiles can obtain nationality. The political crusade of the PP and Vox against the legislative text, which they describe as an instrument of Pedro Sánchez to alter the electoral census, has reached the courts and the Supreme Court has already blocked the right to vote for the newly naturalized. But this is not the only political and judicial derivative of the law. At the center of the criticism, and the lawsuits, is the name of Sofía Puente, a career prosecutor, a high-ranking official in the Spanish government and, also, the sister of the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente.

The Spanish government has announced that it is assuming control of the port of Ceuta for the "humanitarian care" of migrants in tents and other spaces, as provided for in a resolution by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.

The recent squabbles and tensions between the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, and King Felipe VI, have once again put the complex coexistence between the Head of State and the executive under the spotlight. This is not a new phenomenon. Historian Charles Powell recalled how the former President of the Spanish Government, José María Aznar, deliberately sidelined the emeritus King Juan Carlos I during state visits of great international relevance, generating enormous suspicion at the Zarzuela Palace. These frictions highlight an unavoidable reality of the Spanish political system: theoretically, the monarch and the President of the Government must get along by force, as practically no act of the King is valid without the executive's approval.

Since there has been a coalition government in Spain, criticisms from Sumar ministers against the king have occurred to the point where they are now part of normality, as are walkouts at official royal house events. However, this is not the case with socialist ministers. In fact, the socialist part of the state government has always staunchly defended the head of state, even against criticisms from the right and far-right regarding certain speeches or actions, taking into account that everything Felipe VI does must be endorsed by the Spanish government. Nevertheless, this week a sudden crisis has emerged between the Spanish government and the Crown that represents a plot twist, following a harsh criticism from a socialist minister like Óscar Puente, one of the main escorts of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, over a recent photograph of the king with the far-right agitator Javier Negre in Colombia, within the framework of the investiture of the new leader, Abelardo de la Espriella.

The fires that are devastating the south of Madrid, Toledo, and Ávila in a completely uncontrolled manner have not brought a truce between the Spanish government and the executive of the Community of Madrid. After the Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso requested on Thursday night the declaration of a national emergency "due to the seriousness and simultaneity of forest fires in three autonomous communities" and that the Military Emergencies Unit (UME) joined the extinction services, this Friday Minister Óscar Puente has lashed out at the popular governments for this way of facing forest fires.

After a week stunned by the Zapatero case and the investigation pointing to a plot within the PSOE, the socialists are counterattacking. The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has requested to appear before Congress to inform about "the political situation related to the latest known judicial investigations." That is to say, to talk about the scandals surrounding his party. This is reported by sources from the Spanish government, who assure that they have "nothing to hide" and no problem discussing, if the PP wishes, the cases affecting the PSOE and also those of the PP, such as Kitchen, which is on trial. The PSOE has vowed to resist at Moncloa. The appearance has no date yet, but it will be after June 19, when the next European Council will take place, which Sánchez also wants to account for.

The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, met this morning at first light with the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at Palau, to address the situation in which Renfe's commuter service in Catalonia has been immersed since the crisis opened in January, with the accidents in Adamuz and Gelida. This is the first meeting between the two leaders since the railway crisis broke out, almost three months ago. Puente and Illa arranged this meeting by taking advantage of the fact that the minister has been in Barcelona since yesterday because he attended the first edition of the AENA literary awards last night.

Work on the Garraf railway tunnel, on the R2 South line, will begin this March, as announced by Transport Minister Óscar Puente on Monday. Puente noted that this infrastructure improvement project has already been tendered and contracted, but work had not yet commenced because the Catalan government (Generalitat) had deemed it necessary to prioritize other lines on the commuter rail network. However, the work schedule for this section of the R2 South will no longer be postponed, Puente explained during a breakfast briefing held at the Ateneo de Madrid. In fact, Adif and the Commuter Rail Plan had already anticipated that these maintenance works on the Garraf tunnels—through which the trains pass and which have suffered damage for years due to corrosion caused by sea air humidity—would begin at the end of last year or the beginning of 2026. To carry out this work, however, the third-track installation in Martorell had to be completed so that once the R2 line is closed, the Regional trains would have to be diverted onto this other track. These works will force trains to run on a single track between Garraf and Vilanova i la Geltrú, which will reduce service between these stations and, consequently, force trains on lines R13, R14, R15, R16, and R17 towards Barcelona to be diverted via Vilafranca. To minimize disruption to passengers, Renfe has proposed maintaining 8 trains per hour in each direction from Barcelona to El Prat de Llobregat, 6 trains to Castelldefels, 4 to Garraf, and 2 to Sant Vicenç de Calders (Baix Penedès). They are also planning two additional trains in the morning and evening to maintain the connection with Barcelona on weekdays (although the route will be extended via Vilafranca), as well as several direct bus services, increased intercity bus service, and a new service between Altafulla and Torredembarra and Barcelona.

Last night, Carles Puigdemont exacted a significant price. As we explained yesterday, The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in his favor. (him, Comín, and Ponsatí) and established that the European Parliament stripped them of their parliamentary immunity with clear bias. The ruling states that the rapporteur in charge of investigating the Supreme Court's request was a Bulgarian MEP from the same political group as Vox, the party that acted as a private prosecutor in the trial of the Catalan independence leaders. This individual participated in an event entitled "Catalonia is Spain" in which he called himselfPuigdemont in prison"What happened yesterday doesn't happen very often, because the court has corrected the shortcomings in the European Parliament and the General Court of the European Union and told them to please do things properly. The president in exile celebrated it thus:"

Transport Minister Óscar Puente remains in the eye of the storm. Although he appeared before the Senate last week and again before Congress on Tuesday, the upper house demanded his resignation on Wednesday over his handling of the Adamuz and Gelida accidents, as well as the rail chaos, now concentrated primarily in Catalonia. The People's Party (PP), which holds an absolute majority in the chamber, forced his resignation by presenting a motion calling for "the immediate resignation of the Transport Minister, without prejudice to any political responsibilities that may correspond to the President" of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez. However, they were not alone in the vote. Vox, as well as the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), one of Sánchez's investiture partners, voted in favor of the motion. "It's time to stop minimizing what happened," declared PP Senator Carmen Belén López. In his opinion, the recent accidents are the result of "negligent management": "The fear of being late has become the fear of not arriving at all." During his speech, López accused Puente of lying and spreading "falsehoods": "You don't play games with the safety of Spaniards." The task of responding fell to Socialist Senator Marcos Albadalejo, who lamented the PP's "confrontational" attitude: "Spain has one of the most important railway systems in Europe and it is undergoing a modernization process precisely to address the shortcomings accumulated during the Popular Party governments." He thus regretted that the PP is pretending the state of the railway network doesn't concern them: "Investment has skyrocketed" since the Socialist government, increasing "by more than 60%" since 2017, Mariano Rajoy's last year as head of the Spanish government, Albadalejo said of Adamuz and Gelida, referring to the overall state of the trains.

With fifteen minutes to go before the protest called by railway unions in front of the Ministry of Transport, a group of demonstrators traveling from Tarragona were still 60 kilometers from Madrid. Victims of their own crisis, the problems plaguing the high-speed rail line between the Catalan and Spanish capitals prevented them from reaching the demonstration. Finally, some 300 people—many wearing fluorescent vests—made their presence felt at Nuevos Ministerios, the complex of buildings that houses the headquarters of five ministries, including the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, headed by Óscar Puente. The flags of the six unions that had converged there—red, black, green, white, and blue—waved, creating a cross-section of the entire "railway family." Workers from Renfe, Iryo, and Ouigo shared the space with workers from Adif. These are the companies at the center of the storm following the Adamuz and Gelida accidents and the commuter rail chaos. "This must mark a turning point, a watershed moment," says Pepa Páez, general secretary of the CCOO railway sector, from the stage. "We cannot allow ourselves to normalize what is not normal, we cannot resign ourselves to the railway functioning on a patchwork of solutions," she adds. Noelia Martín, from the CGT, agrees and believes that the recent accidents are not "isolated incidents," but rather "another symptom of the chronic illness" afflicting trains in Spain. And Diego Martín, general secretary of the Spanish Union of Railway Drivers (Semaf), demands immediate changes and a "review of the sector and all its measures," lamenting the insufficient effort dedicated to maintaining the rail network.

Time. This is the factor that will now determine the restoration of normal rail service in Spain, and particularly in Catalonia, where the commuter rail network has been mired in chaos for days. This was reiterated by the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, during his appearance before Congress this Tuesday: "The rail network isn't a teapot. It can't be fixed in two days," stated Puente, who, five days after appearing before the Senate regarding the Adamúz (Córdoba) train accident—also a fatal accident in Gelida—repeated the procedure in the lower house of the Spanish Parliament. Puente appeared again at his own request and that of the parliamentary groups—this Tuesday, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) submitted a list of requests for his appearance regarding the rail chaos—and immediately took the opportunity to defend his decision to address the situation during this rail crisis. He also apologized to commuter rail users. The Transport Minister has been under intense scrutiny for days, especially from the right wing and the Catalan independence movement, who have called for his resignation. But he is also being targeted by railway unions, particularly train drivers, and will meet with them this Wednesday to discuss their demands.

Coinciding with a Another day of disruption to the commuter rail serviceSecretary of State José Antonio Santano has announced that he will travel to Barcelona to personally oversee the management of the rail problems in Catalonia and ensure the service is restored as soon as possible. Santano arrives this Monday without a return ticket, intending to remain in the Catalan capital until service is fully restored, according to sources at the Ministry of Transport, who emphasize that this proximity should also facilitate direct communication with the Catalan government. Santano's office will be located in the Spanish Government Delegation in Catalonia, the same place where his predecessor, Víctor Morlán, set up shop in 2007, on the eve of the AVE high-speed train's arrival in Barcelona, ​​and amidst another commuter rail crisis.

I would like to believe that Transport Minister Óscar Puente's approach to political participation will be different after his recent experiences. The most solemn and dignified ceremony for the Adamuz and Gelida train accidents took place last Thursday at the Carolina Marín Sports Palace in Huelva. The most significant moment at this state funeral was the speech by Liliana Sáenz, daughter of one of the victims. "We are the families [now 46] who will fight to know the truth," she said, emphasizing the meaning and purpose of her words. "Only the truth," she added, "will help us heal this wound that will never close. We will know the truth, we will fight to ensure there is never another train accident, but we will do so with serenity, with relief."

Hello, how are you?

Two 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.