Various environmental organizations are trying to convince the parties represented in Congress to include in the Sustainable Mobility bill the suppression of short flights when there is a viable alternative by train, following the example of France. The measure has been clearly rejected at least by Vox, PP and Ciudadanos.
Representatives of the different parliamentary groups have valued this proposal among the options to reduce the climate impact of aviation. All this occurs days after learning that, for the first time, the number of air passengers in Spain has exceeded the figures prior to the pandemic.
In January 2023, 16.93 million people traveled by plane from the airports in the Aena network, 2.1% more than in the same month of 2019 and 62.7% more than in January 2022.
Meanwhile, the future Sustainable Mobility law is currently being debated, a legislative project that environmental NGOs describe as "lazy", since they judge that it does not propose "a roadmap" to decarbonise transport, but that it is a mere " declaration of intent", as criticized by the spokesperson in Spain for Transport
The rule entered the urgent processing process at the end of January, which means that it does not have to go through the plenary for approval in Congress, but rather that all its preparation before going to the Senate would remain in the Transport, Mobility Commission and Urban Agenda, unless the deputies on Thursday vote in favor of the legislative project being brought to the plenary session of the Lower House.
Environmental groups have stepped on the accelerator to raise the ambition of the regulation and include proposals such as the elimination of short flights for routes that already have a fast alternative by train -such as, for example, a trip between Madrid and Barcelona- and They have met these days with the parliamentary groups to suggest this and other measures.
For now, they would only support this proposal Más País-Verdes Equo, while Unidas Podemos has declined to answer and the PSOE have preferred not to rule on this controversial measure yet, claiming they want to "respect the negotiations" they are currently holding with the other parties.
Más País-Verdes Equo defends preventing short flights for those journeys "where there is already an alternative by train," says the deputy Inés Sabanés, who points out that her idea is to go even "one step further" than France.
This country has obtained the green light from Brussels and has already prohibited flights for routes within the national territory that can be done in less than two and a half hours by rail and also prohibit private jets.
All this, he qualifies, "accompanied by a true strategy and promotion of the railway", which his formation already proposed when the climate change law was processed, he says, but then "they told us that this would have to go into the sustainable mobility law" , so "now is the time" for the measure to be considered.
The Popular Parliamentary Group advances that due to "ideology" it does not agree with the idea of eliminating short flights, since they predict that the transfer of air passengers to rail will occur naturally and, especially, with the liberalization of rail lines.
The Madrid-Barcelona air bridge is according to the popular "a good example" to show how free competition encourages citizens to opt for the train rather than the plane for their trips between the two cities, "without the need to prohibit" PP sources emphasize.
Along the same lines, Ciudadanos rejects the possibility of suppressing flights in order to protect the "freedom to choose", as explained to EFE by its deputy Juan Ignacio López-Bas, who also underlines the commitment to the train that, he perceives, has increased thanks to the liberalization of lines such as Madrid and Barcelona and the consequent lowering of tickets.
The latest data from Aena, however, show that the Madrid-Barcelona connection continues to be the domestic route with the most traffic at both Madrid and Barcelona airports.
For their part, Vox sources have expressed their opposition to the measure, and have taken the opportunity to charge against the "climate radicalism that imposes its ideological postulates."
From the Ministry for Ecological Transition they have explained in parallel that at the moment the Government "is not considering a measure similar to that of France."
