The "comprehensive transfer" of Rodalies that the PSOE and ERC have signed will not happen overnight. Both parties are aware of the complexity of a transfer of powers of this magnitude and avoid setting calendars that cannot be met later.
The first and simplest step is the financial transfer, so that the Ministry of Transport will pay the Generalitat the annual tariff deficit instead of transferring it directly to the operator. Last financial year this figure rose to 335 million. The Central Government also assumes all extraordinary payments that had even reached justice and that will finally have a political solution.
The next step, and under which the rest will have to be done, is to create a mixed public company, with a joint board of directors made up of half representatives from the central government, and the other half from the Generalitat.
The Catalan administration will be in charge of electing the president of the new company, so thanks to his quality vote he will have a majority in the company, although decisions that are considered strategic will need a qualified majority.
The option of creating a new joint venture, which will be called Rodalies de Catalunya instead of moving from Renfe to Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC), was not the option preferred by pro-independence supporters, but ERC negotiators have noted that it is the best way to avoid a labor dispute that could have serious consequences for users. A significant majority of the workers who move the Rodalies trains every day are from outside Catalonia and come here for a while, until they find a place in their place of origin. Subrogation to a company that only operates in Catalonia would put an end to their aspirations and could leave Rodalies without enough machinists overnight. To avoid this problem, a collaboration agreement will be signed between the new company and Renfe that protects the mobility of workers for a time that has yet to be determined. The machinist union Semaf, before knowing the content of the agreement, already warned that it is studying the call for mobilizations and the Generalitat promised to meet with them to give the maximum guarantees throughout the process.
While the new joint venture will take over the workers and the trains with which Renfe now provides service, the infrastructure will be partially transferred from the Spanish Railway Infrastructure Administrator (Adif) to the Railway Infrastructures of Catalonia (Ifercat). The biggest challenge of this public company so far has been the construction and maintenance of line 9 of the Barcelona metro, one of the works with the most cost overruns and overdue problems that can be remembered in Europe.
The agreement envisages that Ifercat will initially take over tracks, catenaries and stations on the Maresme (R1), Vic (R3) and Garraf (R2 south) lines. It is not all the lines, because the lines on which freight trains travel or which connect with the rest of the communities must continue to belong to the railway network of general interest (Rfig). However, this aspect is the most complex of the transfer and will have to be worked on in the technical field through a commission created expressly for this. There are doubts, for example, about who will keep the tunnels that cross Barcelona or the stations. "We will analyze kilometer by kilometer to specify the sections that will pass to the Generalitat and those that will be kept by the State", point out Government sources.
The probable scenario of one part of the railway network belonging to Adif and the other to Ifercat opens up an unknown and unusual scenario on an international scale. "It shouldn't be a problem, we will make shared control centres", they say from the Generalitat. On the other hand, sources in the sector think that the most sensible thing would be for the owner of the line to cede management to the entity that controls all rail traffic for reasons of safety and efficiency.
