A week ago, the Government announced an investment of 1,100 million for tolls on the AP-7 and AP-2 over a period of between five and seven years. Isn’t it too long to avoid the problem of current?
We are presenting a very ambitious package of comprehensive action measures in these axes. It is an exercise in transparency to explain to the public that due to the volume and complexity of some measures we are going to need time to be able to execute them, but I think it is a very rigorous exercise of analysis and study that has the consensus of the territory. I have been a user of the AP-7, the queues are not new since the tolls were lifted. Those queues have always been there. With this plan we are going to contribute so that the impact of the greater demand for these routes can be improved.
In 2021, only 36% of the total budget was executed in Catalonia. Why?
These are data from an accounting report that do not reflect reality. If we analyze the volume of investment in absolute terms, Catalonia is the community in which the most has been invested in the whole of the State in the past year. We have invested more than ever in high speed and more than ever in the conventional rail network, from an average of 240 million euros in 2018 to an average of more than 800 million euros in 2020. We have executed around 80% on roads and we have also tried to explain the effect that the rescue of the radials and other investments that compute there but provide service to the entire territory had on the execution of Madrid. Beyond the coldness of the figures, it is necessary to explain the rhythm of the projects. For example, La Sagrera. The easiest thing is to check how La Sagrera was when we arrived in 2018 and how it is now. Our will is to improve those execution levels, but I insist that a correct reading must be made.
What is then according to you the execution rate?
We would like to execute as much as possible, but we have to be aware of the situation we are in. The context of the war has produced an increase in the prices of materials and also at certain times a lack of certain materials and this has affected the pace of execution of the works. But in absolute terms we have certified work in Catalonia above any other autonomous community of the Spanish State.
Will they finally cede Rodalies financing to Catalonia?
We are waiting for this program contract to be formalized so that the State can transfer the resources for the financing of Rodalies to the Generalitat and not directly to Renfe. That is solved with the signing of that program contract that we are waiting for the Generalitat to agree to be able to sign. The disposition is total and absolute.
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Has the expansion of El Prat been completely ruled out?
We have not ruled it out. We continue to think that it is a good project for Catalonia and for Spain. In this case it is the Generalitat. When the Government is told that the execution levels that are expected are not reached, we also leave on the table that sometimes it is not easy to reach agreements with the Generalitat de Catalunya. The sample is that step back that he took when he had already said that it seemed like a good project, the sample is also the unexpected and incomprehensible decision of the Government of the Generalitat that did not want to present the agreement reached on the B40 for the northern connection between Sabadell and Terrassa, when it is a project that has been validated by the Generalitat, the municipalities and the social and economic agents. I think you have to be brave. When you are governing you have to be brave and assume the complexity of certain projects and in the case of the El Prat airport it is a complex project that has to comply with the regulations on environmental compensation but it is a project that is worth working for.