The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) is preparing an alternative to accelerate the railway subsidy of Almería without the Junta de Andalucía in the face of its blatant breaches and unwillingness to assume the agreement agreed by its leaders last December. Thus, if the Board does not agree before Saturday to sign the current text, Mitma will begin the process that leads to the liquidation of the integration company since it has not in any way justified the reasons for separating from the principles that inspire the railway integration agreements.
“Integration societies only make sense when all parties are equally committed to a project. If the Junta de Andalucía is not, we can no longer waste time and risk funds, so we will have to look for an alternative solution. It is clear that they are willing to collaborate in the financing of other projects, such as Line 3 of the Seville Metro, but that Almería was not among their priorities. With this decision we are giving the Board the exit they were looking for, while continuing to comply with the Government of Spain with the Almerians,” said the Secretary of State for Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Isabel Pardo de Vera.
Shield integration
To ensure that Almerians are not harmed, Adif will promote a new bilateral agreement with the City of Almeria and will make the necessary changes to the project for integration and grounding, boosting the purely railway assets. Thus, it will segregate from the project the parking lot and the bus station to advance the integration of the high speed railway in Almeria and ensure that the works are completed in time and form, preventing the loss of the European funds NextGeneratioEU of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (MRR).
The goal of the Mitma is to have the new project completed in May and licit as soon as possible.
To ensure that Almerians continue to have expectations of having an intermodal station, Adif will build the railway station and associated basement and keep the land available by the time the Board decides it can allocate sufficient financial resources to Almeria. When this happens, it will be necessary to reach a new agreement on the corresponding land and assets.
This solution will allow the Government and the City of Almeria to maintain their investment in the city, will leave open the door to the start-up of the bus station and other facilities initially contemplated with the future participation of the Board, under the conditions that will be decided in the future, and will guarantee the arrival of European funds.
“We have always made it clear that the integration model is not negotiable, and they cannot haggle with the future of Almeria. Adif clearly has an alternative possibility and will work at full speed to get it up and running. We would prefer that they had not wasted our time again, but we are going to live up to what the Almerians demand from the Government,” said Pardo de Vera.
In this sense, the only possibility to maintain the integration society and the involvement of the Andalusian government is for the Junta de Andalucía to communicate between today and Friday its willingness to return to the agreement agreed in December, once the possibility of financing its part with European Feder funds has been resolved, to proceed immediately to its signature and to the tender of the works.