The working group of the Governments of Spain, France, Aragon and Nouvelle-Aquitaine notes the progress made towards the reopening of the Canfranc international line

The Governments of Spain, France, Aragon and Nouvelle-Aquitaine form part of this working group, with the participation of representatives of SCNF and ADIF, as well as the Trans-Pyrenees Foundation and Suelo y Vivienda de Aragón.

Among others, the meeting was attended by the General Director of Planning and Evaluation of the Railway Network of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma), Casimiro Iglesias Pérez, and the Regional Minister of Territorial Development, Mobility and Housing of the Government of Aragon, José Luis Soro Domingo.

The reopening of the international line linking Zaragoza - Canfranc - Pau is getting closer thanks to the collaboration of all the administrations and the support of the European funds obtained in two calls for proposals from the MCE, in 2016 and 2019.

The objectives of this international project are the recovery of the Zaragoza - Canfranc - Pau line, favouring freight and passenger traffic on both sides of the Pyrenees, by means of an alternative to roads, and promoting the growth of exchanges between France and Spain.

2016 Call for proposals

The project presented, "Overcoming missed connections between France and Spain: studies for the rehabilitation of the Pau-Zaragoza cross-border railway section" obtained funding in the MCE 2016 call for proposals. The total budget for the nine actions was 14.7 million euros of which 50% is financed by European funds. The implementation period for all actions ends in December 2022.

The study work currently being carried out lays the foundations for determining what the future Canfranc line will be like and how the infrastructure will be managed.

One of the most important milestones of this project was the approval, in September 2020, of the convergence criteria on the line, common technical criteria to ensure the interoperability of cross-border traffic.

Other important actions of this project are those related to adapting the section between Zaragoza and Canfranc to standard gauge, as well as preparing the line according to convergence criteria. In today's monitoring committee, Mitma reported on the state of development of the informative study to implement the standard gauge between Huesca and Canfranc and the informative study for the standard gauge connection of the line with PLAZA. The first of these informative studies is expected to be submitted for public consultation before the end of the year.

Once these studies have been approved, progress can be made on the construction projects to adapt the line, which will be carried out by ADIF. In parallel, ADIF has already put the works for the renewal of the tracks between Plasencia del Monte - Ayerbe out to tender and approved the projects for the sections between Ayerbe - Caldearenas and Jaca - Canfranc.

Progress is also being made in defining a joint management structure for the international line, which will serve to manage and operate the line as a unit and also to be able to continue collaborating in the search for and management of new European funds. It is hoped that this will be one of the issues that can be discussed at a forthcoming quadripartite meeting.

2019 Call for proposals

In 2019, and within the same Connecting Europe Facility, funding was also obtained - 31.93% of the total budget - for the project "Overcoming missed connections between Spain and France: Pau - Zaragoza cross-border railway section. Reopening of the Somport railway tunnel". The total budget for the actions is 8.6 million euros divided between the seven actions presented. Among the actions for which funding has been obtained are the works for the construction of the new passenger station in Canfranc and the new railway yard.

This project also includes the preliminary studies on the Somport tunnel: the state of the civil works in the tunnel, the environmental aspects and the study on how the tunnel will be managed once it is reopened to international traffic. The actions envisaged in this project are to be completed by December 2023. The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region have signed a partnership agreement for this action. The contract to draft the study was put out to tender at the end of 2020 and awarded, in the first half of 2021 - with a budget of 814,000 euros.

Non official translation