Amnesty, referendum and for dessert Rodalies. These are just three of the demands on a list that the independence movement puts forward to allow Pedro Sánchez to be sworn in as President of the Government. It's not that the list is long, but it is intense, with very important issues. The more national demands predominate in the media, but yesterday the Catalan Executive was responsible for reminding that on the table, for re-election, ERC is also putting the complete transfer of the Rodalies train service. “The negotiations are not going to be easy, they are going to be complex,” the candidate confirmed yesterday.
The commons were added yesterday to the claim, with the approval of Sumar.
“You shouldn't be surprised [that it is a claim],” point out the independence movement. The demand for the transfer is historic, as is the number of incidents that Rodalies has suffered over the years. Yesterday he went back to his old ways. The train service experienced another chaotic day, a fact that the Government took advantage of to redouble the pressure on the socialists and, although its spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, did not dare to mark the transfer as a red line, she did describe it as “essential ” and “necessary” for the investiture.
However, he assured that Sánchez “would have to get his act together,” because, according to what he said, the negotiation is progressing too slowly. “I would have to make a move and be brave,” he said in line with what Pere Aragonès expressed in last week's general policy debate in the Parliament.
“What should be a reference service is a nightmare,” he added. before ensuring that "the Government has amply demonstrated that it is absolutely incompetent to manage the trains in Catalonia and also does not care in the slightest."
The Generalitat emphasizes that what happened yesterday is not a specific situation. According to data from the Conselleria de Territori, an incident occurred every two days in the months of July and August. The most notorious of them was the derailment of a Talgo train without passengers in Sitges.
A third of the delays, however, are related to accidents and other external causes that have nothing to do with the infrastructure or the trains. The Government has taken advantage of yesterday's crisis to once again bring to the fore a report already made public before the summer. It estimates 831 serious incidents recorded during 2022 on the Rodalies and medium distance network, according to data from the railway infrastructure manager (Adif). It is a figure that has been increasing in recent years due to the large number of works that are taking place at the same time in different points.
Renfe, on the other hand, took to its field the report made public yesterday by the Government to highlight that 92.5% of Rodalies users use the train normally. “At the press conference [the Government] reported delays in 22,500 trains,” although the remaining 278,000 have done so on time, Renfe responded in a statement.
