"Neither towards Ricarda nor towards the sea". Esquerra has shown his opposition this afternoon to the possibility that the El Prat airport has a new runway over the sea and has reiterated that his objective and that of the Government chaired by Pere Aragonès is none other than to change the governance and management model so that this falls on the Generalitat as soon as possible and prevent this airport from being subordinated to that of Barajas.
This was expressed today by the deputy general secretary of ERC, Marta Vilalta at the press conference after the usual Monday meeting of the party. "It is not our proposal or that of the Government," the spokesperson for the Republicans has reiterated.
In addition, the spokeswoman wanted to make it clear "to avoid confusion" that the idea of expanding the airport with a runway over the sea does not come from the Republicans and that the proposal is just one more of those that the Government has on the table. For the ERC leader, the responsibility of the Catalan Executive is to study and listen to all those initiatives that can be sent to him from any group. "Republican Left, we are neither the ones who want to cement everything nor the ones who do not want there to be no improvement," Vilalta stated. "Modernizing" the airport is the concept on which the Republicans continue to rely, as specified in the pact that the Government sealed with the PSC to allow the final approval of the Generalitat's budgets for 2023 in the coming days.
ERC argues that what was agreed is the creation of a working commission that can study all those measures that are presented.
As La Vanguardia announced on Saturday, the project for a 3,400-meter runway over the sea, a private initiative, proposes its construction one mile away from the airport on ten-meter-high pylons and without a satellite terminal, which it would be connected to the existing ones with a platform. The investment would be around 2,100 million euros, some 400 million more than what was planned by Aena with its idea of expanding the third runway at the expense of the protected natural area of La Ricarda.
At a press conference in Barcelona, the deputy general secretary and spokesperson for ERC has pointed out that this is not a proposal from the Government, but from some "experts", and has criticized those who "take advantage and make a deviant interpretation of the facts". .
"We defend that it be a first-rate airport, a true intercontinental hub. Do we have to lengthen the runway or do we have to expand it to achieve it? No," Vilalta insisted.
