The arrival of high-speed rail at El Prat Airport is reactivated.
An agreement between Junts and the Ministry of Transport unblocks the project and plans to put it to tender early next year.
BarcelonaA new political agreement, this time between Junts and the Ministry of Transport, has brought an old infrastructure project that had been shelved for two decades out of the window. A delegation from Carles Puigdemont's party announced this Thursday at noon from El Prat de Llobregat that they have reached an agreement with the Spanish government to "unblock" the airport's connection to high-speed rail.
This revives an idea that was already conceived in 2002 and took shape in 2008, when the high-speed rail network between Madrid and Barcelona was launched. At that time, a halt was planned at El Prat, a station-like structure with fewer amenities, to bring high-speed rail to the airport. But the crisis halted that initiative, which was completely paralyzed. The space for the structure is there, but the trains don't stop.
As explained by Congressman Isidre Gavín, and as confirmed to ARA by sources from the Ministry of Transport, this new agreement now aims to restart this line. And it aims to be done quickly: the agreement provides for the "immediate" tendering of the demand study and the information study, and in the medium term, the forecast is that the tendering of the construction project will be done in the first quarter of next year.
This afternoon, Juntos boasted that the party does in Madrid "what the Generalitat (Catalan government) and other actors don't." Speaking to the media from El Prat station, accompanied by spokesperson Míriam Nogueras, Isidre Gavís emphasized that they have "unblocked a strategic project for Catalonia" and recalled that this infrastructure has been "in a dark drawer" for 20 years.
The Junts deputy has defended that this project will help Barcelona airport to be a "hub international", and considered it "unforgivable" that this connection does not exist until now and the project has been "relegated" by the State. Gavín also assured that this infrastructure is "a piece of the Catalan airport model", which is added to the stops at the Girona and Reus-Tarragona stations, which were already "underway". ~BK_S of Infrastructure of the Generalitat has valued that it is a "very important" agreement, which will be worked on and materialized through an amendment to the law on navigation and air safety. "Our votes are at the service of the interests of Catalonia and the Catalans. And what the Generalitat and other actors do not do, we do," affirmed Gavín.
