Speech by President of the Government of Spain at event to inaugurate Monforte del Cid - Elche - Orihuela high-speed connection

Elche

Good afternoon to you all. Regional President, dear Ximo, Minister for Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, dear José Luis. Mr Mayor, where is the mayor? I can't see you, how are you Carlos? Welcome and my congratulations, as well, on this achievement, State secretary, Mr Chairmen of Adif and RENFE, government delegates, both of Murcia and of the Region of Valencia.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the Regional Government mentioned this earlier, and I also believe that reduced mobility has been one of the main sacrifices we have had to make over the last year, which we were forced to adopt to overcome the health emergency that we are still facing.

With this reduced mobility, it is true, we have been able to avoid the virus spreading even further; right now we are immersed in the third wave. And the fact that we have had fewer possibilities to travel has made us all - we have seen this in our daily realities - more aware of the importance for everyone to travel, to get to know and to connect our regions, to generate more economic opportunities, to set up companies, to have the option to be closer to the people we love the most, to go to the university of our choice, to travel for work or, quite simply, to freely choose where we want to be at any given time.

The pandemic has not delayed, and I feel it is very important to underline this at this event, those projects we felt were pressing before the health emergency. Quite the opposite. What the Government of Spain has done, together with the Regional Government of Valencia, is speed up these projects, which can clearly be seen here today in one of the great yearnings of the Region of Valencia, and one of the main priorities of the Government of Spain.

Today we inaugurate the Monforte del Cid - Elche - Orihuela high-speed stretch, which forms part, as the minister mentioned before, of the Mediterranean Corridor. I would like to recall that, in turn, this stretch forms part of the Madrid - Castile-la Mancha, Region of Valencia - Region of Murcia Line, also known as the Levante High-Speed Line. What does this stretch that we inaugurate today mean?

Firstly, the high-speed connection between Elche and Madrid. There was no direct railway line before.

Secondly, we are optimising travel times, since it will now take just over three hours to reach Elche, which means reducing the travel time by around an hour, and reducing the travel time to Murcia and to Cartagena when the line arrives there.

And thirdly, it means the sale of integrated tickets at a fixed price, with a free service on the Orihuela - Murcia - Cartagena stretch and the intermediate stations, thus extending the possibilities to the public.

In short, the inauguration of this stretch means better connections, more accessibility and greater optimisation of time. On top of this you have a greater offer from the railway sector.

Two daily services are due to run in each direction, with a subsequent increase planned of an additional service each day in each direction, with an ultimate scenario of four journeys in each direction.

The whole of the Monforte del Cid - Elche - Orihuela - Murcia Line is budgeted for, as the minister said before, at 1.49 billion euros. And this is already 95% implemented. That is the backdrop. And that was our priority. Because as was rightly said by both the regional president and the mayor, the Mediterranean Corridor plays an important social function, but first and foremost, it structures the country by transcending the borders of each of the regions affected.

And hence, the government considers this to be a State policy. We consider this project to be a State policy given that it not only helps us enhance our competitiveness, create jobs, set up new businesses but it also strengthens something very important for all of us, which is territorial cohesion.

At the end of the day, we must come out of this crisis more united, and when we talk about no-one being left behind we are not only talking about people, who are clearly important and at the heart of our political priorities, but also ensuring that no region is left behind in the wake of the pandemic, and in the scenario of the economic recovery.

So, social and territorial cohesion, as you know, is one of the great transformations of the Government of Spain, together with digitalisation, the ecological transition and real equality between men and women, which form part of the cornerstones of the transformation that will define the economic recovery plan of the Government of Spain.

By completing this project, territorial cohesion will contribute to strengthening the region's economy, but also that of Spain as a whole in such important sectors as tourism, industry, agriculture and logistics.

Hence, our vision of the future regarding railways involves breaking the preponderance of the radial pattern and boosting the development of connected corridors to improve synergies between the different means of transport. In this vision of the future, the Mediterranean Corridor is the backbone. We must also take into account that this is an unbeatable opportunity to promote goods transport, which has always been one of the issues pending, from our ports to logistics centres. And to improve mobility throughout our network of infrastructures.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, it is clear that we will remember 2020 for many things, and most of them for nothing good. We will remember 2020 as the year of the pandemic, and consequently of the virus. And 2021 will be the year of vaccination and recovery. And this will be the year of the recovery because, while we have been overcoming the health emergency, we have not stopped dealing with the economic and social emergencies. Nor with projects which, as I said before, are pressing, such as the one we inaugurate today. Evidence of that, as the minister rightly said before, is that the National Budget for 2021 provides for almost 2 billion euros to infrastructures, which is double the figure under the National Budget for 2018, which only allocated 975 million euros.

And I wish to add that, within the National Budget, more than 490 million euros have been allocated to actions in the Region of Valencia, and highlight the more than 225 million euros to adapt the international-gauge track on the stretch from Valencia to Vandellós. And in the province of Alicante, the budgetary figure for railway investments exceeds 144 million euros. In other words, the commitment to allocate economic resources to the Region of Valencia is more than clear in the National Budget.

Ladies and gentlemen, I said at the start that mobility restrictions stemming from the pandemic have helped protect the public during this lengthy health emergency. The full recovery of mobility over the coming months, thanks to vaccinations, will undoubtedly foster the economic reactivation. We also have 140 billion euros in funding from the European Union, under this agreement reached back in July 2020, as I just mentioned, and this National Budget in line with the extraordinary time we now face. And we have the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, being jointly drafted with the regional governments which is, in short, the most ambitious economic reconversion project in the recent history of our country for the coming decades.

Spain and the Region of Valencia are ready to exploit this to the full. And we want to do this with everyone, through territorial cohesion, by structuring Spain and guaranteeing that no-one is left behind - neither people nor regions. The infrastructure we inaugurate here today, I have no doubts about this, dear regional president, dear mayor, dear minister, will undoubtedly contribute to this, to this competitiveness, to this territorial cohesion, and consequently to a more prosperous future for this land. So thank you and congratulations to the Chairmen of ADIF and RENFE, to the State secretary, to the minister; in short, to all those public authorities that have today turned this dream into a reality.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Non official translation