The Government admits a delay of two years in the calendar promised to the European Investment Bank to receive 150 million euros for the purchase of trains that have turned out not to be of adequate dimension for the tunnels that they had to cross.

The General Secretary for Infrastructure,

Xavier Flores,

has announced in Santander that he expects that, after the redesign, it will be possible to operate the new trains in 2026, which implies a breach with, among others, the EU bank that finances their purchase .

According to the documentation to which this newspaper has had access, the commitment when Renfe requested the loan in 2019 was to conclude the project for the purchase and start-up of the 31 trains for Cantabria, Asturias and Vizcaya,

on December 31, 2024 at the latest. delay.

As Flores explained at a press conference after a meeting of the monitoring group in the Cantabrian capital, the new forecast is 2026 as long as the manufacturer CAF can adjust to these deadlines after the redesign of the train, which is estimated to take place before the summer .

The high official of the Ministry has given a new version of the problem and has indicated that it was not that they were too big for the tunnels of the railway network, but excessively small, which, in his opinion, has led to a " complex technical discussion" since September 2021, when there was full awareness of the problem and the solution, as this newspaper published.

Flores has admitted, pointing to Renfe, that they could have acted with "more diligence" in this period.

"There have never been problems with large trains, but smaller than the current ones and we did not want that

," he said, according to Europa Press.

The Ministry is confident that the delay with respect to what was signed with the EIB does not jeopardize the loan and ensures that a new tender will not be necessary.

However

, Flores has admitted that there may be an extra cost due to the rise in prices of raw materials,

with respect to the period in which the manufacture of the trains should have begun.

Meanwhile, the political controversy continues.

The PP requested this Wednesday the dismissal of the Secretary of State for Transport,

Isabel Pardo de Vera,

who was in turn president of Adif in the first half of 2021, when the problem became known.

"

He takes cover in the dismissal of two gentlemen who were passing by.

As you are not going to resign because you prefer to be the mockery of all Spaniards, dismiss who was then the president of Adif, who is today his Secretary of State, who has hidden for two years", reproached the deputy of the PP,

Alicia García

, to the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez in an interpellation.

She did not expressly defend Pardo de Vera and limited herself to pointing out that he will continue to purify responsibilities after the dismissals of two intermediate positions in Renfe and Adif.

As published by this newspaper, an act of the State Railway Safety Agency focused the responsibility not on Adif, but on Renfe, as the one in charge of verifying that the material it bought was suitable for the network.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Renfe

  • PP

  • Biscay

  • Asturias

  • Cantabria

  • Santander