The deficit candlestick of infrastructures in Catalonia, recognized by the Statute itself, added to the breaches in the budgetary agreements of governments of all colors, has historically had numerous ideas to try to solve it. Unsuccessfully. Either because the investment never been enough to reverse the situation either because at the moment of truth the execution has reached derisory percentagesthe reality is that the investor deficit of the State in highways and railways is perpetuated. The parcelswhich began to be talked about in 2018, will now be one of the formulas to be explored, as EL PERIÓDICO advanced this Sunday.
The ‘parcels’ transfer responsibility to the Generalitat. Government assigns the execution of the works to the Catalan Executive and it does with the corresponding economic item. In other words, the convenience of unfolding a highway, expanding the links of a highway, updating a layout or connecting two stations, for example, is agreed, and then the budget is transferred to do it. The Department of Territory write the project, Infrastructures.cat tenders the works and, from Catalonia, ensures compliance. In the end, if it is about the road network, it can be transfer ownership to the Generalitat or that it remains in the hands of the Ministry of Transport.
Subcommittee without meetings
In recent years, first the Ministry of development of José Luis Ábalos and now that of Transportation by Raquel Sánchez, have offered Territori this system, with different luck. The clamor by the infrastructure deficit, denounced by governments and civil society in all possible ways, forced a meeting of the bilateral infrastructure subcommittee in October 2018, a body that had not met for neither more nor less than 11 years. The then Secretary of State for Infrastructures, Pedro Sauraand the ‘councillor’ of Territory and Sustainability, Damià Calvet, explored this option no result: They did not agree on what was on account of the third additional provision And why not. The infrastructure subcommittee has not met again either.
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More recently, already at the stage of Jordi Puignero, there has been one of lime and another of sand. The architects of the agreements, the Secretary General of the Vice-Presidency, Polítiques Digitals i Territori, Ricardo Fontand the Secretary of Infrastructures of the ministry, Xavier Flores, who had worked together for nearly a decade. Font and Flores took the photo together with Minister Sánchez in July: it was the first ‘commendation’, the expected works on the B-23 bus lane entrance by the Diagonal of Barcelona.
The B-40 does not like the ‘minister’
Right now, the project of the seven kilometers highway pulls ahead. The key to making it so is that there is a signed agreement. “Whoever has an agreement has a treasure”, said an experienced Generalitat engineer. However, this had not been achieved in June, with another of the eternal projects of the ministry in Catalonia, the fourth belt. That Friday the 10th, Puigneró and Font planted the minister in Terrassa (Vallès Occidental) at the last moment by order of the Presidency, despite the fact that the B-40 project, with execution by the Generalitat and money from the ministry, was going to become the second ‘commission’. Now, with a ‘conseller’ of Territori, Juli Fernandezagainst these works, it remains to be seen what future it has.