“Confidence in the high-speed system is broken.” Words from the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, yesterday morning, before the appearance of the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, to report on the terrible accident in Urda. They are not banal words, or at least they don't seem that way.
Sánchez's words have a deep meaning and it can be assumed that they were not uttered only to absorb the social tension after the accident. If the head of the Executive affirms that social trust in high-speed rail is broken, it means that one of the great strategic projects of the Spanish State in the last forty years has entered into crisis: the structuring of the country through high-speed trains, with an obsessively radial network that has helped to establish the economic capital of Madrid. José María Aznar in 2000: "This program will bring together all the territories of Spain through the complete meshing of the road network; a high-speed rail network that, in ten years, will place all the provincial capitals less than four hours from the center of the peninsula."
All provincial capitals, less than four hours from the center of the peninsula. That was the project. A project that Felipe II would have signed in El Escorial. Steel, electricity and concrete to structure Spain from Madrid. Very fast trains to overcome the kilometer, historical and psychological distances of a country with rugged terrain. Let us remember that in Europe there are more orographic accidents between Irun and Cádiz than between Paris and Moscow.
Twenty-six years after Aznarian's statement, not all provincial capitals are four hours from the center of the peninsula. For example, high speed has not yet reached the Basque Country, because its construction is slow and very expensive. And there is no connection that does not derive from the radial layouts. For example, there is no high speed between Barcelona and Valencia. Spain has the most extensive high-speed network in Europe, with a length of 3,924 kilometers. It is the second most extensive network in the world, after the People's Republic of China (50,000 kilometers), a large-scale country. To date, this network has cost more than 60 billion euros, a figure financed 25% by the European Union. Three billion seven hundred million of the 80,000 million Next Generation funds received by Spain to alleviate the economic effects of the pandemic have been invested in the high-speed network.
If thirty days before a general election, the President of the Government affirms that the confidence of Spanish society in a project of such magnitude is broken, the Minister of Transport has no other option than to present his resignation before the electoral campaign begins and the deliberation on who should govern Spain in the coming years officially begins.
We are not talking about an exclusive project by Aznar, with the portrait of Felipe II in the back of the room. The high-speed network, as we know it today, has had the unconditional support of the Popular Party and the PSOE. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero also promised that the AVE would reach all provincial capitals. This project has also had the substantive support of the two main center-right formations of Basque and Catalan nationalism, the Basque Nationalist Party and Convergència i Unió at the time, indispensable formations in the approval of many general budgets of the State. We are talking about a broad parliamentary, political and social majority.
As is well known, Minister Óscar Puente hinted yesterday that he does not intend to resign. In his appearance before the press, long, prolix, without evading questions, he said that he had put his position at the disposal of the president and that he considered his dismissal “unfair.” “I will only resign if I become a problem for the project,” the minister said. He was referring, of course, to the socialist project in the November 29 elections. He will only resign if it becomes an electoral problem for the PSOE. When and how will this risk be evaluated? The Minister of Transport plans to appear before the Permanent Deputation of Congress next Tuesday, November 3.
Puente wants to clarify what has happened, he wants to defend his honorability, he wants to demonstrate that there has not been a structural failure in the management of his ministry, and he wants to make it clear that the accident occurred as a consequence of an “inexplicable” error in the Atocha Control Center. Yesterday the minister avoided talking about “human error.” There is reason for this.
The rapid leak of the audios from the Atocha Control Center, while victims were still being searched at the scene of the accident, would demonstrate that there was a human error, but that speed also transmitted another message, a sinister message: the political command of the Ministry of Transportation could have the intention of hiding behind “human error” and letting the entire moral weight of the tragedy fall on the shoulders of a young controller who at this moment must be emotionally destroyed. The command would transfer the entire weight of the drama 'downwards'.
In a country in which many workers accumulate stress in their jobs with unpaid overtime, in a country with tight workforces in which people's efforts cover many holes, pointing out "human error" as the exclusive cause of a serious railway accident would today be a serious political error. The unions Comisiones Obreras and UGT have already called for the minister's resignation. Let us remember that both unions have called a general strike due to housing shortages for next November 11. Yesterday Puente wanted to recalibrate: “I am not going to use any worker as a shield.”
Almost two hundred people have died in Spain in the last thirteen years as a result of accidents on fast trains. The first major accident of these characteristics occurred in Angrois, three kilometers from Santiago de Compostela, on July 23, 2013, on the eve of the feast of Saint James the Apostle. An Alvia train entered a curve at 191 kilometers per hour that only allowed a maximum speed of 80 km/hour. The driver received a phone call from the train controller before entering the curve and did not heed the speed reduction signals. The ERTMS system, which is being talked about these days, had been deactivated; if it had worked, it would have automatically reduced the speed of the train. (Renfe had asked Adif for permission to disconnect that system, to the extent that it presented software problems, stopped trains and caused commercial delays. Its correction was awaited.)
There are those who object that the Angrois accident was not an AVE accident. A train that enters a sharp curve at 191 km/hour, due to the driver's confusion and the automatic control system not being activated, is part of the black history of Spanish high speed. Thirteen years later, the Adamuz and Urda accidents.
The Angrois driver was convicted and the journalists who followed that episode more closely confirmed the existence of an unwritten pact between PP and PSOE not to escalate. At that time there was a certain understanding between popular and socialists; that understanding that today not a few people long for. The accident occurred at the end of July, the holidays arrived and at the return of summer, the country was already talking about something else. The train driver is awaiting a possible pardon. Today the Government cannot take refuge in the Angrois entente.
One hundred and ninety-five dead and five hundred injured, this is the balance of the three accidents. Two accidents in one year (Adamuz and Urda) seriously damage the reputation of Spanish high speed, and place the Government in a very compromised position a month before the elections on November 29. More things are going to happen in the world and in Spain in the next thirty days.
More unforeseen things will surely happen, but it is evident that the course of public debate has changed direction. Government management is once again in the foreground today.
Faced with a tragedy like the one experienced this week, the rulers must take charge of the situation. Taking responsibility does not mean pleading guilty. Taking charge means assuming moral responsibility from the top, even if the failure is at the base. The exercise of this responsibility unites and generates political authority. Minister Puente, who undoubtedly carried out an exercise in transparency yesterday with an appearance before the press that lasted more than an hour, finds himself at that crossroads today. His decision will define the moral tone of this tragic end of the legislature.
Puente, however, also did something else yesterday: he opened the file on the Madrid-Barcelona line, implying that the operation of that line must be suspended for more than a year if its safety is to be completely updated. A year without high-speed trains between Madrid and Barcelona; maybe longer. Message from the Minister of Transport one month before the general elections.
Such a statement expands the crisis of confidence in the high-speed network and could blow up the electoral campaign of the socialists in Catalonia, where the railway issue is on the surface given the enormous discredit of the Cercanías trains. Less than a year ago (eleven months), Puente announced actions to increase the speed of trains between Madrid and Barcelona to 350 km/hour, reducing journeys to two hours. So, eleven months ago, there was no talk of paralyzing the line to better reinforce security.
The moral stamp. This is the question and that question transcends the elections that will be held in a month.
