Spain, at the head of the EU in construction of high-speed km... but at the bottom in maintenance

Spain is a high-speed rail power within the European Union, but that does not guarantee anything. The accident in Urda, which has left at least 69 dead, has once again called into question, six months after the similar event in Adamuz, the situation of the national line. And the data speaks for itself. Between 2018 and 2022 -with the latest data available-, Spain only invested 16% of the funds for AVE lines in maintenance; 84% was allocated to new works, according to a European Commission report published in 2025: that is, of the main EU countries, it is the one that allocates the least to the conservation of its high speed.

The reality of the Brussels data - in a report published in 2025 - is that the country leads absolute spending on high speed among the main economies of the community bloc, although it dedicates the overwhelming majority of those resources to building new kilometers of tracks instead of preserving and renewing the lines that are already operational, as is the case of the Madrid-Seville line, where the two most recent accidents have occurred.

And in the four years analyzed in the report, Spain allocated an annual average of 1.5 billion euros to its high-speed infrastructure: this figure places it, in fact, at the forefront of the continent's great railway powers, ahead of countries like France, which invested close to 1.4 billion euros per year, and Germany, which allocated around 1 billion euros per year to this same item. But quantities are one thing and priorities another.

Because? Because in the Spanish case, 84% of the entire budget allocated to high speed - equivalent to about 1,240 million euros annually - was directed directly towards the construction of new infrastructure. In contrast, only the remaining 16% - approximately 240 million euros per year - was reserved for maintenance, renovation and technical updating of the high-speed lines that were already in service. On the other hand, precisely France and Germany only allocated a third of their funds to new construction, and the rest to the conservation of their lines already in operation.

Germany, for example, leads the European figures in spending dedicated to improvements and modernization of its existing lines, while other community countries such as Estonia manage to allocate 100% of their railway resources to the maintenance and renewal of their routes. That is, if you look at the 27 Member States, the strategies are very different regardless of the funds received. The case of Portugal is also particular. The neighboring country, in the period analyzed, registered the highest percentage increase in average spending on infrastructure per inhabitant in the entire Union, with an increase of 225%. Although during this period it did not have dedicated high-speed lines of more than 250 kilometers per hour, the Commission's analysis highlights the efficiency in investments and the capacity when it comes to having supervision mechanisms.

For Spain there is another element to highlight: it received 172.72 million euros from the EU Cohesion Fund in 2018, the year in which the situation began to be analyzed, according to the report. This information is important because this aid is what can serve, among other things, for better development of the railway infrastructure, although in that period the country was not one of the most benefited by this item.

All in all, Spain has the most extensive High Speed ​​line in the entire EU, so experts warn that conservation is even more important: it reached 3,916 kilometers in operation at the end of 2022. During the four-year period analyzed by Brussels, the Spanish network added 914 new kilometers of high-speed tracks thanks to the launch of key sections towards Galicia, Burgos, Murcia, Granada and Extremadura. In fact, the new sections inaugurated in Spain represented the vast majority of the 1,100 kilometers of high speed built in all 27 Member States, according to the document.

Of course, the conclusion is that the Spanish strategy contrasts notably with the investment model that prevails in the EU average for the global railway network. The Commission's report highlights that EU countries allocate on average 50% of their entire infrastructure budget to taking care of the network in service: 25% to regular maintenance work and another 25% to the comprehensive renewal of roads and facilities. The remaining 50% in the community block is divided between 26% dedicated to operational improvements and 24% aimed at the creation of new infrastructure.