It is difficult to diagnose the reasons why the low execution of State investments in Catalonia In recent years it has become an endemic disease. According to the analysis carried out by the Generalitat, based on data from the General State Intervention (IGAE), in recent years the execution of investment in Catalonia has been around 60%, between 10 and 15 points below the state average. In 2021, however, the percentage broke ground and barely reached 35.7% of what was budgeted, breaking all downward records, both in the historical series and in the comparison with the rest of the autonomous communities. The average execution in the autonomous communities as a whole was around 70%, reaching 183% in Madrid, where last year the rescue of the radial toll highways took place. Along with Catalonia, they also suffered an execution rate below 50% on Basque Country, Cantabria, Valencian Community, Andalusia and Asturias.
Of the 1,330 million euros of investment that the State failed to complete in Catalonia in 2021, just over 1,000 million correspond to the public company that manages railway infrastructures ADIF. The rest of the unexecuted investment was concentrated, above all, in State Portsin Renfe-Operatorin public air navigation companies Enaire and in the national radioactive waste company Enresa. These five management centers are the main responsible for the negligible execution of the State’s investment in Catalonia in 2021. While in the ministries and autonomous bodies, the execution in Catalonia exceeded 90%; in public companies (where 9 out of every 10 euros of state investment is concentrated) it was barely 27.3%.
Projects in the pipeline
Of the 707 million investment budgeted by ADIF in Catalonia, only 24% was executed, while almost 540 million remained unexecuted. In addition, of the 492 million budgeted by ADIF-High Speed, barely 22 million were executed, 4.6% of the total. One of the complaints from employers, entities and institutions is that the data is not broken down or detailed, making it impossible to track what should have been executed and was not carried out, according to Alícia Cusart, director of infrastructures of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce. That is a criticism joined by Joaquim Llansó, president of the Chamber of Construction Contractors of Catalonia: the lack of breakdown and, therefore, of transparency to follow up.
The documentation that the IGAE published on Monday does not detail which works were carried out and which of them were left behind. However, it is evident that practically all of the 492 million projected investment in High Speed for Catalonia remained, for the time being, in the inkwell. Among them: 126 million in operating lines; 182 million for the Mediterranean Corridor; 22 million in the AVE station at Girona airport o 142 million programmed for the railway section between Vandellós and Valencia.
Such a low level of execution has revived the clamor of politicians and businessmen demanding a better performance of the State in Catalonia. After the criticism expressed on Monday by the ‘conseller’ of Economy, James Girothe government spokesperson, Patricia Plaja, affirmed this Tuesday that the data suppose the clear sample of the “contempt of the Government to the Catalans”. In his opinion, the citizens who live in Catalonia “do not deserve a State that abandons them”.
explanations
But there are experts, senior officials and former senior officials who, in one way or another, they give up seeing “a black hand” against Catalonia in the State and adduce other types of arguments. “It may be that the rigidity of the Statute of Catalonia, which imposes allocating 18% of state investment in Catalonia, makes it impossible to absorb that amount year after year and that, for this reason, projects are repeatedly left unexecuted in the year” , ventures an exalted position of the Generalitat. The same source affirms that “Catalonia should consider having a few large projects agreed with the territory or many small ones to be able to execute all the investment”.
From his point of view, it is understandable that there are years of low execution, in which the administration focuses, especially on the bidding of projects; in exchange, after these years there should be others with overexecution.
This is what, according to ADIF, could have happened in 2021. Last year was a year in which two things happened: on the one hand, the ADIF group barely executed 16% of what it had planned to invest in Catalonia; on the other hand, 2021 was a record year for ADIF in terms of tenders for Catalonia, for a total of 510 million euros. These are projects that will be executed in the two or three years after their bidding. Thus, the Ministry of Transport hopes that the projects can advance at a higher rate this year. Among the projects in the portfolio are the Barcelona airport accesses; track duplication between Parets and La Garriga; performances of surroundings of Catalonia; the seasons of Sagrera and Sant Andreu; the variant Tarragona-VandelloI am the burial of Sant Feliu and Montcada i Reixac.
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Among the reasons that help explain the lower investment execution in Catalonia, the Department of Raquel Sánchez also points out the social and political response which, for example, has ended up aborting the expansion of El Prat airport. “As soon as an investment in a highway is announced, a platform in favor and another against immediately arise. That does not prevent the project from being carried out, but it does slow it down,” a ministerial source graphically explains. Precisely, Minister Sánchez has called for “a reflection” on the necessary “consensus in the territory” when dealing with certain infrastructure projects.
In any case, the fact that projects are not detailed also prevents us from seeing that the rate of investment in Rodalies has accelerated, as well as the decongestion works of the Tarragona rail freight transport to the north or the works at the station The Sagrera, in Barcelona, according to sources familiar with these projects. They also corroborate it from the Chamber of Commerce.