Adif shielded the bonus to its leadership hours before its president resigned

Adif, the public entity at the center of the target for the tragedies of Adamuz (Córdoba) and Urda (Toledo), and the collapse of confidence in the high-speed system, renewed last Wednesday the incentive plan for its steering committee in the coming years. Only hours later, Carlos Body, the new Minister of Transportation, beheaded the company's leadership by admitting the resignation of its president, Pedro Marco de la Peña, who had signed the document that includes bonuses for meeting objectives linked to the provision of the service.

It is not that recent years have been brilliant in terms of punctuality, quite the opposite, although traffic has multiplied. But this 2026 fiscal year that is now ending will probably remain the worst in the recent history of the railway. And the former president of Adif met with the board of directors of the public entity in an extraordinary manner last Wednesday, November 3. The call was due to the need to approve the company's agreement with the Ministry of Finance, an agreement that will govern the period 2026 and 2030 and replaces the one in force until 2025.

Marco de la Peña came to this highly questioned advice. The accident in Urda (Toledo) a week ago was the third fatal accident in nine months, with a total death toll of 116 and hundreds of injured. The day before, Minister Óscar Puente, the person who had appointed him in 2024, resigned against all odds before the Permanent Deputation of the Congress of Deputies. The logical order was the opposite, first Marco de la Peña and then Puente, but it happened that way. The former minister only notified his family and President Pedro Sánchez of his decision in advance, as he later confessed.

So the decision to resign or remain in office corresponded to Marco de la Peña or the trust that Carlos Corpus had in him. The version of the meeting that took place after the Adif board of directors is that Marco de la Peña presented his resignation at that time. His penultimate signature in office was that of the public company's agreement with the Treasury.

"To encourage and promote compliance with the objectives of the Agreement, ADIF-Alta Velocity will implement, in a coordinated manner with the criteria adopted for the rest of the entities dependent on the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, a Management Incentive Plan, which will continue the one implemented for the period 2021 - 2025, through the previous Agreement," says the approved agreement. "This Plan will link the variable remuneration of management to the objectives of operating results, investment and other service provision objectives."

The Adif management committee is chaired by Marco de la Peña himself. In addition, he is accompanied by his chief of staff, Salvador Almenar, and general directors of areas such as planning, projects and construction, operations and exploitation, finances and human resources. This committee received a remuneration of 1.2 million euros in 2025, according to Adif's financial report. The appointment of part of this committee, as is the case of Almenar, had been criticized with increasing intensity for its obvious link to the PSOE.

But the scope of the incentives reaches other management bodies that, apart from the committee, have senior management contracts "either because they were given them due to their position or because they kept them from when they were general directors or presidents and they were dismissed and are currently as directors or deputy directors," explain sources familiar with this internal variable remuneration mechanism.

What specific targets will be paid this year is unclear. In 2024, between 6% and 30% of the variable remuneration applied is subject to compliance with ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) objectives. In 2025, the range depending on these criteria drops to 6%-22% with elements such as energy transition, cohesion and inclusion or sustainable finance. There is nothing in the documentation related to security or punctuality, for example.

The agreement that includes incentives for the management committee is a document that regulates the State's budgetary contributions to finance infrastructure, compensate for Adif's operating deficit and control debt. In exchange, it establishes execution commitments, investment plans and required quality levels and service delivery indicators that the administrator must meet to operate efficiently.

Ignoring the milestone of 2026 as a year in which the railway has, presumably, hit rock bottom, Adif's objectives for the next four years, in the best possible scenario, are not very encouraging. Less reliability, more lateness, total failure to meet maintenance objectives. This is the panorama drawn by the new Adif Agreement with the General State Administration (AGE) until 2030. Both Adif and Adif-Alta Velocity - which are two different companies - plan to absolutely fail to meet their "preventive maintenance" objectives for the roads every year. Despite the increase in funds allocated to this item, the compliance limit will be 90% on the conventional network and 96% on high speed. Regarding tardiness, it has tripled in 2026 and will improve, but without reaching previous parameters.