The Spanish Government announced at the end of July that it will be possible to travel for free for four months on Renfe Rodalies and medium-distance trains. A measure that had to serve to alleviate the serious economic and social crisis in which all the indicators indicate that we are entering.
For too long, the Rodalies de Catalunya service, managed from Madrid, has not functioned as a public service in an economically developed country. Many stations have become obsolete. They are old and in many cases do not have enabled access. The elevators to access the platform break down and there is no effective repair service. The convoys are old and in many cases, due to the large number of passengers that pass through the day, they are very dirty.
We want and need a Rodalies service that lives up to the country we deserve, the taxes we pay and the necessary competitiveness of our business fabric. With more passing frequencies, because the Rodalies service is used, above all, for people to travel to work. It cannot be allowed that day in and day out there are delays, with the consequent loss of productivity and personal time.
The first day on which the free measure was implemented, there were crowds and delays. It was the day when thousands of people returned to work after the holidays. What will happen now when schools, institutes and universities start? Will there be enough convoys to absorb the increase in travellers? At the moment, it seems not. On the second day of the application of the bonus, delays occurred in 90 trips and 22 were eliminated. Thousands of passengers were affected by these incidents.
Catalonia is a country that receives many millions of visitors every year. During the time of the pandemic, tourists decreased, but currently the number is already close to the data for 2019, when we received 19 million international visitors. How do you plan to solve this increase? There are lines, like the Maresme line, that are totally obsolete. It is a line -the Mataró-Barcelona line, which was the first to be opened in Spain in 1848- that is saturated.
Many of the things that we have to tolerate in Catalonia can be understood if we look at the numbers and the data. The Government has executed 184% of the budgets in Madrid and 35% in Catalonia. The Spanish State allocated 308 euros per citizen in Madrid. In Catalonia, 95 euros per citizen.
In the last 25 years, the number of kilometers of track inaugurated in Madrid is 84. In Catalonia, 0. In Madrid, 17 kilometers of urban tunnels have been built. In Catalonia, 0. With regard to the construction of new stations, Madrid once again wins by a landslide. In Madrid there have been 20 and in Catalonia (Barcelona) only 6. If we compare the services and benefits of the stations in the two capitals, Barcelona loses again. You only have to see the deplorable state of Plaça Catalunya, in the nerve center of the country's capital, to verify that the investments are zero. Atocha wins again.
Access to the new terminal T1 of El Prat was put out to tender in 2009 and stopped in 2010. The works did not resume until 2018 and the forecast to finish them lasts until 2024-25. Barajas airport plays in another league. It was put out to tender in 2009 and put into service in 2011. If everything goes as it should, and the works meet their deadlines, the Barcelona airport terminal will be finished fourteen years later.
More data that demonstrates the underinvestment suffered by Catalonia: from 1990 to 2019 in Cádiz, 607 million euros have been allocated for three million passengers each year. In Barcelona, 619 million euros have been invested for 110 million passengers a year. In 15 years, the Spanish State has executed less than 24% of the investments of Adif and Renfe in Catalonia and the difference in investment in Rodalies/Cercanías that the State allocates in Madrid in relation to that allocated by Catalonia is 153% compared to the 24%. The investment per Catalan is 250 euros while the investment per Madrilenian is 907 euros.
What will the Spanish Government do as of January 1? Lengthen the measure? What if he removes it? Users cannot depend on the measures that are decided by decree at 600 km. And all that happens when more numbers come out of the oven. This week we learned through the Department of Economy that every year the citizens of Catalonia generate more than 20,000 million euros that go to Madrid and do not return.
When they manage us from Madrid, they make us small. What happens, however, when infrastructure management is in the hands of the Catalan government? A good example is the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC), managed by the Generalitat de Catalunya itself. A quality service that responds to an operation model and a model of information and customer treatment that is totally different from the Renfe Spain model. It's not just what I think, it's what the data says: the FGC have 100% of the stations adapted for people with reduced mobility and the FGC have a punctuality of 99.6%.
Catalonia needs investments, not charity in the form of free tickets until the end of the year. Catalonia needs to be able to manage the more than 52,000 million euros in taxes that we pay. The citizens of Catalonia deserve much more. They deserve independence.
