Óscar Puente tells Europe of the importance of Portugal and France getting involved in the development of cross-border connections

The Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, during the meeting with representatives of the European Commission on the Atlantic Corridor

The Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has met in Madrid with the Deputy Director General of the European Commission's Directorate General for Mobility and Transport, Herald Ruijters, and the European Coordinator of the Atlantic Corridor, Carlos Secchi, to discuss the importance of completing the cross-border connections of this axis, which is key to the economic and social development of Spain and its connections with Europe and to the decarbonisation of freight transport.

To this end, during the meeting, Óscar Puente asked to guarantee the involvement of Portugal and France in the development of the cross-border connections of the Atlantic Corridor with Spain and expressed the Ministry and the Government's utmost commitment to the execution of this corridor, for which works for more than €6.1 billion have already been tendered.

The visit of the European representatives comes in the context of the imminent approval of the new Trans-European Transport Network regulation. The meeting was also attended by the Secretary of State for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, José Antonio Santano, and the Commissioner for the Atlantic Corridor, José Antonio Sebastián.

The representatives of the European Commission visited the works on the Madrid Chamartín Clara Campoamor station and the intermodal station at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, both of which are among the projects included in the Atlantic Corridor. Afterwards, the Commissioner for the Atlantic Corridor gave a briefing on the latest progress in its development.

"Spain is investing billions in the Atlantic Corridor. Since June 2018, more than €6.1 billion has been tendered for its development," explained José Antonio Sebastián. In fact, it is the country that has managed to add the most infrastructure development to the core network (whose completion horizon is 2030) since the initial definition of the corridor in the Trans-European Transport Network. "In addition to the incorporation of Asturias and Galicia a few years ago, we have now managed to include Cantabria in the new Trans-European Network regulation which, following approval by the European Parliament, is now going through the final stages prior to its entry into force", explained the commissioner.

Backbone

The Atlantic Corridor is a backbone that connects, through multimodal transport infrastructures, 13 autonomous communities. It involves the development of 5,300 kilometres of railways, actions in 9 ports, 5 airports, 5 logistics terminals and 2,764 kilometres of roads. This axis crosses and drives communities that currently generate around €888.648 billion of our GDP, 66% of Spain, and will have a direct positive impact on 65% of the Spanish population.

European funds have been key to the realisation of such a large-scale project. For this reason, another of the issues discussed at the meeting was the new funding framework for these projects that the European Union is working on, as well as the status of the latest call for proposals of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which is the financial instrument created by the European Commission for the development of the Trans-European Network.

Non official translation