The vindication of the Mediterranean corridor has returned this Thursday to Barcelona, four years later, by the hand of the businessmen of the Valencian Community. The business summit of the Quiero Corredor movement has brought together more than 1,000 businessmen in the Catalan capital. “It is a key infrastructure both for our communities in the Mediterranean arc and for all of Spain. We ask for more speed in the works, in the remaining sections", Vicente Boluda, president of the Valencian Business Association (AVE), pointed out at the entrance to the Barcelona International Convention Center (CCIB) Auditori Fòrum.
Boluda has doubted the times given by the ministry, which speaks of 2025-26 as the date for the connection of Almería to the French border. "It is impossible for the complete corridor to be there, it may be that it is from Murcia to the border, but from Algeciras, not at all", commented the Valencian businessman.
Six years after starting this business demand for AVE, Boluda recalled that "in a democracy we have had seven presidents of the government and none of them has changed that dynamic, which is the same, nobody has completed the current radial Spain with a circular, in terms of infrastructure. We are closer, but it is not yet a reality", highlighted the shipping company, who opened the business event after 12:30 p.m., with some delay compared to the scheduled time.
Likewise, he added that “although it is true that the corridor is advancing, and it is fair to acknowledge it, neither the accumulated delays nor the pace at which it is moving can make us become complacent. We cannot wait any longer ”, he has sentenced.
In addition to a large business representation —more than 1,000 businessmen and businesswomen were confirmed—, the presidents of Catalonia, the Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia, Pere Aragonès, Ximo Puig, and Fernando López Miras, have also attended.
For the Valencian president, who has traveled this morning from Valencia to Barcelona, today's is "a claim that has lasted a long time over the years, and we have verified coming from Valencia on the train that it is an effective emergency", in allusion to the 20-minute delay marked by the Renfe train in which the delegation of Valencian journalists and businessmen was also traveling.
Puig has valued that the Mediterranean is "the axis that has brought prosperity to Spain" and has called for it to accelerate "to the maximum", not without acknowledging that "the Government in recent years is accelerating". For the head of the Consell, at today's event they are talking about the future of the entire country, and he has pointed out that "strangling the growth of the Mediterranean arc is strangling the growth of Spain and of Europe in part".
For his part, Fernando López Miras, president of the Region of Murcia, where the sections of the corridor have significant delays, has quantified the deficit of travelers that the region has due to the lack of a rail infrastructure comparable to Europe. López Miras has cited a study by the University of Murcia according to which the autonomous community has stopped receiving “720,000 passengers, that is 1,200 million euros and more than 9,400 jobs. This has to end now. We must execute now, we need facts, not words, because the Region of Murcia is a railway island”, he pointed out.
López Miras, to questions from journalists, has said that he is critical of the different central governments for the slowness in the works, at the same time that he has claimed that "it is time for the Government of Spain to stop prioritizing words over facts and treat all territories equally”.
