The ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) that forces the Generalitat to pay more than 80 million euros to Renfe is clear and clear, but the Government is not willing to satisfy the debt. The legal representatives of the Territori department are studying presenting an appeal to the obligations recognized between 2016 and 2019 and make it clear that they do not plan to pay those of subsequent years.
Councilor Ester Capella believes that “the Generalitat has the right to stand down” and not pay in response to the lack of compliance with railway investments by the Ministry of Transport. In an interview on the Ser Catalunya program Aqui Catalunya, in addition to demanding the complete transfer for the umpteenth time, he accused the Government of being “the main defaulter” in the matter and confirmed that they do not plan to assume the cost of the action plan agreed in his moment with Rodalies neither from this year nor from the previous ones under discussion. The amount rises to 156 million euros from 2016 to 2022, at a rate of approximately 25 million annually.
For now, the debt that the contentious-administrative chamber of the TSJC has recognized in favor of Renfe is 80.9 million, to which late payment interest must be added, in addition to subsequent years not yet prosecuted. The money corresponds to the so-called “action plan”, with various improvements incorporated after the 2010 transfer, such as the extension of trains from Mataró to Arenys de Mar, the RG1 line that reaches Portbou, the first train to the Prat airport and the Rodalies service from Camp de Tarragona. These are some of the improvements applied at the request of the Catalan government, which were established in the transfer that the public administration should be responsible for the costs.
The Generalitat had been paying punctually for these services since it assumed ownership of Rodalies until 2017, when at the moment of greatest tension between the Moncloa and the Palau de la Generalitat they made the political decision to stop doing so. The increase in the fees charged by the railway infrastructure manager (Adif) for each train that passes through the tracks was the justification argued by Territori to stop paying, since at that time these fees were increased by up to nine million. more every year. Even so, they decided that they would not pay the fees or the costs associated with the service. First the Renfe technicians complained, then the Government's political officials did so and, given the lack of response from the previous heads of the Territori department, the operator decided to take the case to court, which has given it the reason to Renfe based on the agreement signed in the Joint Commission of Economic and Fiscal Affairs (CMAEF) in 2009, in which it was made clear that it would be the Catalan government that would have to pay the increases in fees for the services agreed at that time and future additions.
The original sin that has led to this situation is the absence of a program contract between the Generalitat – as service owner – and Renfe as operator. The nonexistence of this document that establishes the rules of the game prevents these issues from being debated between both parties, as happens in the rest of the autonomous communities, where the Government has taken charge of improvement plans under that program contract a thousand times. debated but never signed in Catalonia.
