The governments of Asturias and Cantabria will attend a meeting with the Minister of Transport in Madrid (set at 4:30 p.m.) on Monday, the 20th, with a strong demand for compensation for discrediting “Fevemocho”. However, regardless of the Ministry’s promises to improve the metric rail network of both communities, One of the keys will be the way this promise is embodied.. According to the lawyers consulted by this newspaper, the most effective formula for securing an investor commitment from the Ministry in the suburbs of Asturias would be to sign an agreement with the Principality specifying terms and amounts.
The form of the administrative agreement has been subject to legal changes to determine its legal personality. Thus, Law No. 40/2015 on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector undertook the regulation of this agreement and cooperation formula, which had until then been developed in the midst of an important legal vacuum. “The more specific the content of the agreement, the more specific will be the commitments that administrations must make,” says the lawyer. Javier Junceda. According to that, The obligatory nature of complying with what is agreed in the contract is guaranteed by Article 29 of the Law Regulating Disputed-Administrative Jurisdiction.. According to this article, if the administration that has signed the administrative contract does not comply with what it has signed, the other party may submit a claim of conformity, allowing the submission of the administrative contract, if the agreement cannot be reached or the request is not fulfilled. Controversial-administrative objection against the inaction of the administration. The law also allows those affected to demand the execution of actions that must be taken by the administration, and if these actions are not rectified within a month, it may lead to lawsuits in the courts with a shortened procedure.
Junceda argues that there is no specific typology for agreements and that it may be as detailed or generic as signatories think. They can’t be more than a statement of intent, but it is also possible to specify a worklist and an execution program. “Also, what is reflected there will have to be reflected in the General Government Budgets,” explains the lawyer. It also highlights that while it is possible to extend it in exceptional circumstances, the duration of contracts cannot exceed four years, making it impossible for them to become a tentative agreement over time.
The Principality will have the power to apply to Justice in case of non-compliance with the signed ones, but it cannot compel the Ministry to choose an agreement formula which will be accepted only by agreement of both parties. Instead, experts In the current state of the situation, the claim for compensation due to ‘Fevemocho’ is unlikely to be successful., because they consider this damage difficult to quantify, and the legal nature of such a request requires that the outcome of an unwise administrative decision be easily identified. They also deem it unlikely that the winning company would claim these damages because none of the trains were operated without warning of the error in the measures.
There is another option: job management assignment. Asturias and Catalonia came at the same time to shout to the skies when budget execution data for 2020 became known, when the State’s degree of investor compliance was one of the lowest in Spain in both communities. The Catalan government calls for a bilateral meeting monitor the progress of infrastructure investments. One of the areas where the state administration received the worst grades was the railway works.
Catalan solution
The solution was proposed by the ERC, which recommended signing business management orders, where the State transfers the money provided in the Budgets directly to Generalitat, with the district administration managing the tender and tender processes. The agreement, signed before this year’s budgets were approved, affects around 900 million investments. Agreed jobs include jobs from the takeover of national highway II, with a multi-year contribution of 384 million from the State; also actions to improve the connection of two toll motorways with a multi-year expenditure of 250 million or the implementation of the so-called Axis Pirenaico (N-260). In the railway area, it was decided to build junctions between the state network and the Generalitat network. The Catalan rail company manages 40 kilometers of narrow gauge, 42 kilometers of standard track and 89 kilometers of Iberian gauges, as well as a two-rack railway and several funiculars.
Fully promised investments in railway infrastructures Reduced the State’s investment compliance in Asturias in recent years. Two state railway undertakings, Adif (infrastructure manager) and Renfe, realized on average only one out of every four euros stated in the Budgets.
The principality estimates that of the 997 million Euros promised by the central government for the suburban network in Asturias, it still needs at least another 300 million Euros to adapt the rail infrastructure to the optimum needs of the service. The problem is that the State does not deliver on time even the investments promised in the suburban plan. In fact, at the current rate of investment, it will take 75 years for the State Administration to realize the 1,300 million that the Principality believes the regional rail network needs.
Differences with the Catalan clan and Isabel Pardo de Vera in Transport
The Ministry of Transport, after learning of the scandal of contracted trains with faulty measures, is holding active two audits, both in Renfe and in Adif (railway infrastructure manager), to clarify responsibilities and find out the reason for the transportation difficulty. the contract did not materialize. Where is the responsibility? Renfe was the organization that put the train contract out to public tender based on the measurement measurements of Adif routes. Therefore, the accusation was crossed between these two organizations. Isabel Pardo de Vera, Minister of State for Infrastructures, presided over Adif when the problem arose. The PP has nowadays called for Pardo de Vera’s dismissal, and the minister Raquel Sánchez did not accept it, but did not vigorously defend number 2 either. The ministry is the head of Renfe, a Catalan socialism veteran. Eventually, criteria were imposed that a ministerial order was necessary to bring order to the matter, a point that Adif dismissed with evidence that the infrastructure management body was able to bid for the purchase of three locomotives and was resolved. patency problems of tunnels indicating the application of the comparative method with trains in service. Minister Raquel Sánchez is also a Catalan socialist, so there are those who fear the consolidation of a possible alliance, and the Pardo de Vera, which the Asturian government fiercely defends, seems to have gotten away with it.
Canteli says “Fevemocho” made him “sad and embarrassed”
Oviedo mayor Alfredo Canteli (PP) said the error in the Asturias and Cantabria commuter trains contract was a “shame” and he felt “sorry”. “How is it possible that trains don’t go through tunnels? I think I’ve said enough with that. I’m sorry, I’m embarrassed,” Canteli repeated, emphasizing that he was “ashamed” of this as an “Asturian, an Oviedo and a mayor”.
Bendodo: “Populism cannot pass through the tunnels of Cantabria”
Elías Bendodo, the PP’s national coordinator, assured yesterday that the time has come to change the regional government in Cantabria because “neither trains nor populism can go through tunnels.” At a public demonstration in Santander with his presidential candidate, Bendodo criticized both the Spanish Government’s “incompetence” for ordering trains of the wrong gauge and the lack of “toughness” displayed by regional president Miguel Ángel Revilla (PRC). ).