Inauguration by Acting President of the Government of Madrid-Antequera-Granada high-speed line

Good day, President of the Regional Government of Andalusia, Minister for Public Works, Mayor of Granada, mayors, public officials, dear friends who accompany us here on this very important day; and the Mayor of Antequera, who is also here with us.

Today - this has been mentioned by the other speakers before me - is an historic day for Granada. For a city which, as the Minister for Public Works rightly said, has probably had to wait for too long for the arrival of the high-speed train and its return to the railway network. Today, Granada has won a battle with time, and undoubtedly with distance as well. As from tomorrow, Barcelona, Madrid and Granada are not only closer but progress and business opportunities will increase as a result of this inauguration that we are celebrating today.

This is a victory over time which will obviously mean more jobs - as the regional president said - more tourism, more economic development, not just for the city but for the whole province, and clearly for Andalusia and the whole country as well.

In terms of infrastructures, you always have to start from the condition precedent that each euro invested, each kilometre laid, directly translates into prosperity, opportunities and in a better future for society as a whole.

Each action has a real impact on productivity and on the competitiveness of our economy. This is the real value of public works, which I would like to advocate today in a social and market economy such as ours.

During 2018 - just take this figure away with you - more than 1 million inbound tourists visited Granada, a new all-time record. Now, with the arrival of the high-speed train, we are not only in a position to repeat this figure, but to readily exceed it.

That can already been seen in the figures for the first quarter of this year, in line with what the Minister for Public Works mentioned earlier when he spoke about the sale of an extra 40,000 tickets. In this first quarter of this year, there has been a 12% increase in inbound tourists and more than a 6% increase in overnight stays.

In short, Granada will now have the best raw materials, not just in terms of the connections, but above all, in this abundance of historical and universal heritage claimed earlier.

A unique crossroads of cultures in the world, which makes this city a privileged, unique place, worthy of recognition and admiration, as indeed those of us here do. And now you also have, in the high-speed rail network, a tool of tremendous added value to harness these local resources to the full. You can build a high-speed line, but the Alhambra, the Sierra Nevada, the Alpujarras, or the Alpujarra, rather, are either there or they are not. And that is what makes this city and this province unique.

As from tomorrow, Granada will have an infrastructure worthy of your heritage. As from tomorrow, the railway will open its doors wide open to this city like a window to the world. That is the added value of this infrastructure, a value that is measured in terms of prosperity, of wealth for competitive sectors in a strategic sector for Spain as is tourism.

But this is not the only vector to take into account in a modern infrastructure policy. In this regard, I would like to take this opportunity to also appeal to the four great lines of action that the government is ever mindful of in this field:

The first of them is related to security, to safe travel - a key element that includes a commitment to the modernisation of material, for example, in the renewal of the rolling stock on the commuter network.

The second is related to mobility as a right and also, as the minister mentioned before, as an element of cohesion, of social cohesion, guaranteeing social equality in terms of the whole of Spain's territory, both in the rural environment and in cities.

And the third is related to digitalisation and to the commitment to incorporate the latest cutting edge technology.

In terms of the management of infrastructures, this element binds us with an obligation, which is to be more efficient, but also to relate citizen demands with the services offered. In short, with the commitment to big data, to improving inter-modality, which is also so necessary in the infrastructure policy of our country, and to promoting smart mobility.

And fourthly, I would also like to share with all of you the issue of the fight against climate change, of the adaptation to and mitigation of this climate emergency the planet is facing and, in particular, countries such as ours that are going through a particularly severe drought period this year, which I was talking about earlier with different public officials.

We must be very mindful of the commitments under the Paris Agreement, the commitments which all of the Member States of the European Union have recently signed to attain this carbon neutrality by 2050, and clearly the goals which we have also set and which also form part of the logos of the 2030 Agenda which accompany us here today, and to which the Government of Spain is strongly committed.

We must, in short, minimise by all means, the contribution of transport and of mobility to greenhouse gas emissions. And I will not tire of calling for responsibility from all public authorities, from each and every public authority, because the regressions that some people are advocating in this field will have a dramatic cost for society as a whole; a cost that we must not pass on to future generations and which will have a real and clear impact on biodiversity and on the health of people, above all in the large urban areas of our country.

In short, as I said to you before: security, mobility, digitalisation and sustainability. A modern infrastructure policy for Spain must be based on these four pillars, and that is what the Government of Spain is doing. And also in the development of strategic projects with a direct impact on the productivity and competitiveness of our economy.

The commitment of the Government of Spain to the Mediterranean Corridor and the Atlantic Corridor are also in line with this commitment. With that in mind, allow me to invoke a fifth factor that I wish to state in this city of Granada today, which the Minister for Public Works has already mentioned; a factor that is, at the same time, an ideal called Europe, and which represents our greatest hope for the future of our country.

The Mediterranean Corridor, just to give you a few figures to see exactly the magnitude of what it represents, with its more than 3,000 kilometres of direct impact on this province, is an infrastructure of a strategic nature for Spain, for Andalusia, for the east coast and for Catalonia, particularly as regards goods traffic. We are talking about a communication channel that unites more than half of the population and that concentrates two thirds of the GDP of the whole of the European Union.

But above all, the Mediterranean Corridor is a decisive commitment to European integration. And it is here where I wish to place the greatest emphasis. In terms of Europe as a clear economic area of prosperity, but also as a co-existence project between countries that share a common history, values, principles and aspirations.

Major infrastructures such as the one we inaugurate today are built on the hard work and dedication of many professionals, as I mentioned before and I would like to stress this work.

Allow me also to dedicate a few words of gratitude to those who have made this historic day possible for Granada, to those who design and plan such complex works as this; to those who face the challenges posed by the terrain, from the engineer's drawing board; to those who minimise the environmental impact that all human interventions have on the land. And in particular, to those who physically lay the track, the rails and all the elements that make this infrastructure possible. Our thanks to all of those men and women.

Spain is already a global powerhouse in this field. We are leaders in civil engineering applied to the development of large infrastructures. And if we have this leading position, it is precisely because we have learned how to overcome the challenges of complex terrain such as in our country; it is because we have believed in our abilities, in ourselves and in the talent that comes out of our education system. And it is because we have placed our trust in companies that found a way to open up new markets when the economic situation forced us to take our foot off the accelerator here. In short, because we found a way to export the best that Spain has to offer as a country, which is its talent, its commitment and its experience.

And in this, it is not just my words that are full of praise in a sector which is clearly as competitive as this one, and in which no-one gives anything away for free. That is why it is not by chance that five Spanish groups are among the 10 leading groups in the ranking of business groups of transport infrastructure concessions in the world in 2017. And it is not by chance that seven large Spanish corporations are among the 100 leading contractors in the world, according to specialised trade journals.

This is the result of experience accumulated, for example, in the development of the high-speed network, with more than 3,000 kilometres in service and 1,000 more under construction which are, in short, the finest letter of presentation of our companies in the world.

I wish to conclude with a very particular anniversary; particularly symbolic for a city such as Granada. You are aware that 2019 is Lorca Year in Madrid. We commemorate the centenary of the arrival of the most illustrious and universal citizen of Granada to the Students' Residence in Madrid. Today, travelling from Madrid, I couldn't help thinking that it is the capital of Spain that has finally drawn itself closer to the land of Lorca, in a journey in the opposite direction to the one the poet undertook just a century ago.

Today, Granada faces the future with determination. And the business owners and workers of this great city are well aware of that, who I would encourage to continue looking to the future with optimism and ambition, Today, Granada, as Lorca sang, challenges the legend of time to make distances shorter, to unite people and to multiply the opportunities for a city that deserved the arrival of this day.

Congratulations to all those people of Granada. I am convinced that this infrastructure will be a genuine historical accelerator of progress, not only for the city, the province, for Andalusia, but for the whole of Spain.

Thank you very much.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Non official translation