Speech by President of the Government at inauguration of stretch of Mediterranean Corridor from Valencia to Castellón

2018.1.22

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Castellon

Mr President of the Regional Government of Valencia; Mr Minister for Public Works; Madam Mayor of Castellón; Mr Government Delegate; Mr President of the Provincial Council; ladies and gentlemen; dear friends,

Things go well for the Spanish people when we travel together on the same train and this is the case because we can travel further and, with this new stretch of high-speed line (AVE), we can also reduce distances.

We are writing the present of our country in terms of progress so that in the future we can have higher levels of well-being, prosperity and more opportunities for everyone, starting with the most important: jobs. The 611,000 jobs created in 2017 - many of them here, in the Region of Valencia - bring us closer to achieving our goal of 20 million people in work by 2020.

No-one can deny that the recovery is increasingly more consistent now. The Spanish people have proven that the Welfare State is compatible with meeting the deficit target, fiscal consolidation and budget stability and with the effective and efficient management of public resources and the goal of modernising Spain. And this modernisation has a global benchmark in high-speed railway travel.

The AVE, as you know, is a strategic infrastructure and also a productive investment, providing the greatest social and economic return, because it contributes to territorial structure, social cohesion and acts as an economic catalyst. Investment in infrastructure translates into jobs and opportunities for everyone, boosting the competitiveness of a country, enhancing its territorial structure and social cohesion, facilitating the accessibility and connectivity of companies and consumers alike, improving the quality of life of people and is an efficient expense in terms of medium- and long-term sustainability.

And this AVE line from Valencia to Castellón starts up service tomorrow: as from tomorrow Renfe has scheduled four daily AVE services and two Intercity services, maintaining the current daily Alvia service that covers the journey from Castellón to Madrid and on to Gijón. This thus increases the offer of seats four-fold, to a total of 2,250 seats on a business day, an increase of 1,900 seats in total. The travel time will be reduced by 37 minutes to just two and a half hours. This service will significantly improve railway connections with the Spanish capital and with Valencia, and will further help boost economic growth, the number of travellers and tourists.

Furthermore, in order to celebrate its launch, tickets between Madrid and Castellón will only cost 25 euros for the next few days, and 20 euros between Cuenca and Castellón; an offer that is due to last until the ends of the festival of La Magdalena, as many people had called for, starting with the mayor, and many others here. In just five days, 4,700 plane tickets were sold, as far as train tickets... I don't know how many of the others were sold but it would be a question of looking at the figure; but first of all we will talk about this project and then we can talk about other things.

This project is a milestone, as we were reminded of here by the President of the Regional Government of Valencia, for the Mediterranean Corridor, which for us is a political, economic and social priority because it is, as has been said here and as you are aware, a structural and modernising work. Furthermore it is also a tangible reminder of the government's commitment to high-speed rail travel; a reminder that is clearly reflected in the seven stretches of the AVE which will see their work finalised or come into service in 2018. Castellón will be followed by Venta de Baños (Palencia) to Burgos; Zamora-Pedralba de la Pradería, which is the corridor to Galicia; Chamartín-Torrejón de Velasco, in Madrid; Monforte del Cid-Murcia and two actions on the Mediterranean Corridor that are already undergoing tests: Antequera-Granada and Tarragona-Vandellós.

The new AVE service between Madrid and Castellón is a reality that has consisted of the addition of a third line on top of one of the pre-existing lines, with a budget of 178 million euros. What we will do next is add another third line to the already existing line, in order to optimise the capacity of the route and make the services compatible with commuter trains; medium- and long-distance trains with freight trains. In a subsequent phase, a new twin-track platform will be built between Valencia and Castellón to separate high-speed trains from other traffic that use this stretch of the line, with a total investment of 1.17 billion euros. And the new north-south bypass of the Arterial Rail Network around Valencia is under way, with an investment of 880 million euros.

All of these actions form part, as we have been told here, of a State project that is vital for our country: the Mediterranean Corridor, which is the most important investment we are carrying out at this time. The Mediterranean Corridor is a multi-modal infrastructure, combining highways and railways, that will connect the main logistics hubs, intermodal terminals and production centres in the Mediterranean. It will connect companies, ports and airports and thus build a network out of the nine ports and 11 airports in the Mediterranean, from Algeciras to the French border.

A year ago, in Barcelona, we announced major works on the Mediterranean Corridor in Catalonia. Today we are doing this here, in Castellón, with works that will improve connections with Catalonia, because this corridor is a structural work that will boost better connections from the Spanish Mediterranean to Europe. This is thus a great investment to connect us with the future.

As the business organisations in Valencia have been arguing, and they have been very active, as everyone knows on this issue, "committing to the Mediterranean means committing to Spain" and "connecting different regions contributes to the structure of our country".

Ladies and gentlemen,

The actions on this corridor have meant an investment of 22 billion euros, of which 62% have already been implemented. We are working on all the stretches at this time and have sufficient financing to tackle all our commitments; commitments that you are very familiar with, because the government often comes to the Region of Valencia to explain them. The Minister for Public Works has visited the Region of Valencia on 16 occasions in the last year, an indisputable demonstration that we listen and try and take things how they should be taken, seriously.

I also wish to highlight the efforts we are making - which is what the President of the Regional Government of Valencia explained in his speech - to improve the commuter train service, which is essential in this region for the 65,000 people who used it on a daily basis. The Commuter Train Modernisation Plan in the Region of Valencia provides for an investment of 1.44 billion euros between now and 2025, of which 958 million will be allocated to the nucleus from Valencia to Castellón.

I also wish to remind you that on 15 December 2017, the Council of Ministers approved the list of railway services declared as public service obligations, whereby the State will guarantee the provision of these services by financing their operating deficit. In the Region of Valencia, paying heed to an historical call, the services between Castellón and Vinarós, and between Alicante and Villena have been added.

Furthermore, the infrastructures with the most direct impact on the capacity of the productive fabric, for competition and for creating jobs, are those related to logistics and efficient and sustainable freight transport. For that reason, we have also set the challenge for this term of office of increasing the percentage of railway freight transport in Spain. I believe that Spain is a model country and that it has nothing to envy regarding any other country in relation to infrastructure. However, I believe that on the issue of railway freight transport we must still make an effort and, to achieve that, we are mobilising all the resources necessary to have well connected ports. The mechanism we have implemented to achieve this is the Financial Fund for Land Access to Ports, which provides for a total investment of 1.42 billion euros.

I would also like to convey to you our commitment to the Cantabrian-Mediterranean Corridor, and the 335 million euros allocated to the stretch Zaragoza-Teruel-Sagunto are a wonderful example of this.

Ladies and gentleman,

There are many examples and actions are being carried out by the Government of Spain here, in the province of Castellón, in the Region of Valencia and throughout the country. Infrastructures, as you know better than me, have represented and continue to represent an excellent opportunity and improve social cohesion through mobility, accessibility, connectivity, efficiency and sustainability.

Road transport also plays an essential role. Here, in the province of Castellón, the government is implementing such important actions as the works on the new stretch of the N-232 highway between Barranco de la Mota and la Masía, with an investment of 40 million euros, and the works on the Port of Castellón.

As you are aware, we have undertaken some major actions on highways at a national level: the Extraordinary Highway Investment Plan (Spanish acronym: PIC) will mobilise an investment of 5 billion euros, actions will be undertaken on more than 2,000 kilometres over the next four years, improving 20 major corridors. When this is implemented it will create 189,000 jobs. This plan seeks to improve road infrastructures throughout Spain and, furthermore, will provide a fiscal return of some 3 billion euros that will help drive economic growth and job creation.

Within the framework of this plan, I wish to make an announcement: the second action under the PIC will directly benefit Castellón. We are going to build three new stretches of the A-7 Mediterranean Motorway in this province, from Vilanova d'Alcolea to La Jana, with a three-fold goal: to provide a boost to the Mediterranean Corridor, to help the inland structure of Castellón and to improve connections with Aragon. With a planned investment of 434 million euros, this action will extend for almost 48 kilometres. The route it takes runs inland through the Region of Valencia and will offer continuity to the route taken by the CV-10 motorway, allowing this to be joined up to the A-7 Mediterranean Motorway in the future in the province of Tarragona. This action is due to be put out to tender, with the feasibility study due to be made public in the autumn of this year.

Ladies and gentleman,

I will draw to a close now, but before doing so I wanted to refer to an important issue, which the President of the Regional Government of Valencia mentioned in his speech, namely the infamous debate on the model of regional financing. I was the Vice-President of the Regional Government of Galicia, some years ago now unfortunately; then I was the Minister for the Public Administration Services and I have had the chance, also as Vice-President of the Government, to take part in many debates on regional financing. I have seen this from the perspective of the regions and I have also seen this from the perspective of the Government of Spain.

This is a very difficult issue, let's not kid ourselves. These are complicated debates in which everybody has their own reasons and arguments and everybody is probably right in the reasons and arguments that they put forward.

The current model of regional financing dates back to 2009. It was not possible to modify this in the last term of office, because we had a clear priority then and I believe that we all shared that belief, and that priority was to avoid Spain going bankrupt which, while this may now seem very far away, was on the verge of happening with consequences that would assuredly have been very negative for us all. Who is now talking about the risk premium, which stands below 100 points, when not long ago it stood at above 600 points?

I wish to state that I have every interest in the world in trying to resolve the problem of regional financing, but I also want to very clearly state that I represent, in my position as its president, a political party that has 137 MPs. With 137 MPs we cannot push through the model of regional financing by ourselves.

I believe that an effort must be made; let's just hope that everyone wants to make that same effort, but I clearly feel that it is inexcusable and absolutely essential to reach an agreement between the People's Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party. This is the case for purely mathematical reasons, but also because it is what common sense dictates. We are talking about the key public services; we are talking about healthcare, education, etc. This issue of regional financing is not something technical, as some people believe; no, financing means healthcare attention for our citizens, their education, and their social services. These are, in the end, the issues that most affect our citizens, because they affect their daily lives, their problems and their issues.

I can state to you, Mr President of the Regional Government of Valencia, that I will do everything that is in my hands. I would love to come here one day with an agreement on the model of regional financing and I would also ask you do to everything that is within your power and, furthermore, and forgive me for being presumptuous but I know that you will do this because I know you.

I will end now.

Infrastructures are one of the drivers of the modernisation of Spain; they improve our well-being and our competitiveness and make our country more attractive for people - a country where more than 10% of our GDP comes from the tourism sector, which this year has set a host of new records: we have now overtaken the United States and the figures for the Region of Valencia are also wonderful.

I believe that everything we can do to improve our infrastructures will, in the end, be here to stay and that works to the benefit of everyone. And I believe that the great integrating projects are those that have offered us stability and helped Spain prosper. The President of the Regional Government of Valencia mentioned in his speech about reaching an understanding on infrastructures. I also agree with that. Highways do not belong to the left or to the right, or to those in the middle; highways are highways, instruments of competitiveness while at the same time serving to make people's lives easier. The question is, between all of us, to help, since this must be the main goal of any governor, for things to go better for people, and this can be done.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honour to be here with all of you. I thank you for your presence and we are going to try and continue living up to your expectations, as Spaniards, as indeed are 40 or so million other people.

Thank you.

Non official translation