Speech by President of the Government at inauguration of extension to Rande Bridge

Moaña (Pontevedra)

It would be difficult to send off this year, 2017, has just a few hours remaining, in a better fashion than here today, with the privilege of welcoming in 2018 by building bridges, which unite us rather than separate us, thanks to the commitment we share with Galicia, with Spain and with Europe.

25 years ago today the Maastricht Treaty came into force. This anniversary reminds us of our European vocation and of the great strides Spain has made in the social, political and economic spheres of the EU. Major projects, such as European construction and sizable infrastructures, such as this Rande Bridge, help drive our prosperity, provide a response to the social demand for mobility and connectivity and contribute to the territorial structure of Spain.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The year ending tomorrow has not been easy - in reality few are - but despite what you are thinking, the Spanish economy as a whole has maintained sound expansion and we have grown by more than 3% for the third straight year; precisely by 3.1%, according to the bank of Spain. There are grounds for optimism, because the Spanish economy has enjoyed four years of back-to-back growth, GDP has grown by 0.8% in the fourth quarter, and, most importantly, we are creating jobs. For the first time in eight years, we now have 19 million people in work, a figure that had not been seen in Spain since the third quarter of 2009. In the year ending now, the Social Security system has more than 600,000 new contributors.

We have done the hardest part, which was overcoming the crisis and returning to the path of prosperity and we are now in a position to achieve the goal of seeing 20 million people in work by the end of 2019. We want this recovery to filter down to everyone and, with this aim in mind, we have just signed an agreement with the social stakeholders to raise the minimum wage by at least 20% over the next three years.

The Spanish economy is now both far more competitive and focused on foreign trade, added to which our main export sector - tourism - has once again beaten its own record: in the first 11 months of the year, Spain has received more than 77.8 million inbound tourists, more than in the whole of 2016. Of these millions of tourists, those who choose correctly and come to Vigo will cross this emblematic Rande Bridge, which is now being extended. Building on this bridge finished, as we were reminded here, in 1978, 40 years ago, at which time it was the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world; a symbol and source of pride, as was also said here this morning, for Spanish engineering. And 40 years ago, the Spanish people also enacted one of the most dazzling political architecture projects of the 20th Century - our Transition - which was an exceptional bridge of reconciliation and concord which has led is to enjoy the finest years of democracy and modernisation in Spain.

Our nation has improved greatly over the last 40 years, as have its infrastructures. Let me give you a figure - we have gone from 1,000 kilometres of high capacity roads in 1977 to more than 16,000 at present and the Rande Bridge, symbol of the Ría and one of the most representative images of Vigo, has ended up being too small over these 40 years for the 60,000 vehicles that use it daily. That is why it was necessary to add two new lanes to the four it already had.

I agree with the acknowledgements made by the President of the Regional Government of Galicia in his speech: this is a joint project, begun by my predecessor in the presidency of the government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, through his Minister for Public Works, José Blanco, which was continued by Ana Pastor and Iñigo de la Serna.

Well, I believe that this opening of the bridge extension is excellent news for the people of Redondela, Moaña, Cangas, Vilaboa and Bueu, for the cities of Vigo and Pontevedra, and for the whole of Galicia. Rande is once again a pioneer because it is the first cable-stayed bridge in the world to be extended, with the added difficulty of keeping it open to traffic at all times. That is why I endorse the congratulations of the President of the Regional Government of Galicia to all the professionals that have taken part in a top notch engineering feat.

We needed to update this bridge to be in a position to respond to growing mobility demands and this meant extending its capacity with an additional lane in each direction and 80 new cables to guarantee more fluid communications between north and south Galicia, particularly in the area of Vigo. The total investment, as we were reminded earlier, amounted to more than 191 million euros in a tremendously productive infrastructure due to its social and economic return.

As regards the management of the AP-9, I would like to highlight the important progress made - I endorse the words just spoken by the President of the Regional Government of Galicia - in recent months in a partnership between the Regional Government of Galicia and the Government of Spain. Firstly, through the creation of a joint management committee, a pioneering experience in Spain, which has now met on two occasions; secondly, the recent decision by the Council of Minister to bear the cost of applying discounts, which had been borne until now by the Regional Government of Galicia for several stretches of the motorway which over the whole period of the motorway concession will amount to some 400 million euros; and finally, I would like to mention the request made last week by the President of the Regional Government of Galicia to the Minister for Public Works on his visit to Santiago de Compostela to bear the cost of the discount on the stretch between the district of Teis (Vigo) and the exit in Redondela. As the minister mentioned, we will study the proposal at the next meeting of the joint committee to be held in January.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Allow me to make some more general comments on infrastructures in Galicia. The investment in highways exceeds 798 million euros and the main investments are as follows: the ring road around Santiago which has just seen the capacity between the north and the south of the city extended with a budget of almost 90 million euros. Part of these works was the redesign of the Sigüeiro access road in July; also in July the contract for the new access road to the Ciudad de la Cultura was put out to tender, which provides access to Santiago de Compostela from the AP-9 - the budget amounted to 4 million euros - furthermore, works on the stretch of the A-54 between Melide and Palas de Rey have now begun, with a budget of 71 million euros and we have awarded the works on the stretch from Arzúa to Melide, with an investment of 171 million euros. When all these stretches are completed, Lugo and Santiago will be connected by motorway.

As a particular milestone, I can announce to you that the Ministry of Public Works approved the construction project on the new ring-road link to Santiago between the AP-9 and the A-54 and Lavacolla Airport on 20 December. The investment amounts to 27 million euros.

Railway infrastructures are also a priority. We want, as indeed everybody does, the AVE high-speed railway to reach Galicia. Actions have already been implemented on the high-speed railway for the sum of 3.27 billion euros out of a total budget of 4.4 billion euros. We have made a firm commitment to finalise the works on the high-speed corridor by 2019, but before that, in 2018, we propose to complete the stretch between Zamora and Pedralba. We are working on all the stretches at full speed, despite their complexity, and we continue to make progress on processing the environmental impact statement on the AVE to Vigo through Cerdedo, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environmental Affairs, and on the railway connection projects between Lugo and Madrid, via Ourense, to ensure more competitive travel times.

I wanted to briefly mention airports. We are going to make a total investment of 50 million euros over the next four years and we must highlight the record number of passengers that passed through Santiago Airport in 2016, exceeding 2.5 million.

The progress of port traffic is also satisfactory: between January and November 2017, the general interest ports in Galicia moved 34.4 million tonnes of cargo, 8.6% up on the first 11 months of 2016. And one of the main works being undertaken is the railway access to the outer harbour in Ferrol, an extremely large project that is under way. I don't want to bore you, but we could mention the extension of the quayside in Langosteira, the works under way by the port authority of Vigo, the motorway of the sea between Vigo and Nantes, and so on and so forth.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will end now.

Galicia is making progress and growing, at the same pace as Spain. Its infrastructures are a clear example of this. The extension of Rande Bridge is, as we have been reminded here on several occasions today, an extremely complex feat of engineering that shows leadership and the good work being done in the field of infrastructure, which complements the decisive commitment by the government to improve highways in Galicia with a major investment in addition to others that I have briefly referred to in my speech.

Our efforts are and will remain geared towards the creation of jobs and prosperity and towards maintaining the stability, certainty and security that make it possible to improve general well-being. Rest assured that the government will continue working in the service of the general interest, always thinking about people because that is the only possible way to understand politics.

And I will end by wishing all of you and your families the very best for the coming year, 2018, which I hope is good for all of us.

Thank you very much.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Non official translation