With the lights out of the Spanish-French summit chaired by Pedro Sánchez and Emmanuel Macron, on January 19 in Barcelona, the time has come to start monitoring the commitments made by both parties at this meeting. Above all, given the concerns that are already beginning to surface regarding some of the signed agreements. “We are of course going to meet our deadline, with what corresponds to us. And of course we are going to demand that the Government of France comply with what it told us at the Barcelona summit and that the European Commission is also asking for, to speed up the investment deadlines”, assured the head of the Executive regarding the Atlantic corridor of high-speed train that would link Lisbon and Madrid with Paris through Vitoria.
Given this important investment in infrastructure, Sánchez has assured that the Government "will defend the interests of each and every one of the territories of our country, and the competitiveness of the Spanish economy". This has been pointed out, in response to the alarms that the PNV spokesman in Congress, Aitor Esteban, has already set off, given the possible delay, until 2042, of the connection at the border of this high-speed Atlantic axis, in the Lisbon-Madrid-Vitoria-Dax-Paris line, according to a recent report by the French Executive. The Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, assured at the Barcelona summit, "with great fanfare" according to Esteban, that the forecast was to complete this infrastructure in 2030.
Sánchez has confirmed to the PNV spokesman that this was the term that both executives, and he himself with Macron, agreed at the Barcelona summit. For which he has recognized that they have also been "surprised" by the publication of the new term by the French Government. "In what depends on us, we are going to try to meet the deadlines set at that summit and also committed to the European Commission," he argued. "We hope that the French government complies with the deadlines that it assumed at the Barcelona summit and that it has also assumed with the community institutions", he insisted.
Aitor Esteban, however, has been skeptical about the commitments made at the Barcelona summit, not only for this high-speed connection, but also for the border crossings that France keeps closed and for two projects that the PNV spokesman has assured that are equally "in question": the electrical connection of the Bay of Biscay and the H2Med, between Barcelona and Marseille, to which Germany also joined. "Then what has the summit been for?" Esteban has required. And he has warned Sánchez, given the anticipation of holding joint councils of ministers between Spain and France: “When they go there, I hope they are not fooled and that they truly say that what was agreed in Barcelona must be fulfilled. If not, what is the use of having a friendship and cooperation treaty, if one of the parties then continually contradicts it?
Sánchez responded that "with a neighbor like France we have extraordinary synergies and potential". "We have a good neighbourhood, but indeed we have some points of contention", he acknowledged, on aspects that go beyond the bilateral relationship between the two countries. For example, given the open debate in the European Union on the migration and asylum pact, and the "correct functioning or not" of the Schengen area. The energy connections between the two countries, he added, also go beyond the bilateral relationship, to guarantee supply to the whole of Europe.
In any case, the president has underlined the importance of the friendship treaty signed with France in Barcelona. The neighboring country only has similar cooperation agreements with Germany and Italy, he recalled, which in Sánchez's opinion "means recognition of the strengths and importance given to Spain in the European context."
