Antonio Costa reinforces his commitment to the AVE between Galicia and Porto: “Spain is very beautiful, it’s not just Madrid”

by time news

Los gestures from Portugal to speed up the high speed connection between Galicia and Porto They keep increasing in intensity. Two months after the Portuguese Minister for Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, had urged the Spanish government to “give the ropes to the shoes” on the matter, now it is the Prime Minister who is speaking about this long-awaited route.

At a lunch with 200 businessmen from both Iberian countries, Antonio Costa recalled that his country you have already defined a priority line with the Lisbon-Oporto-Galicia axis. This backbone route of the Atlantic Axis will start its works in 2025 to have time improvements in 2030halving the current ones.

However, he points out that there is still a pending debate on “the best way to connect this axis to the whole network”. The priority of the Spanish government has always been the Madrid-Extremadura-Lisbon line, which must be completed by the end of this decade according to the criteria of the European Union.

After acknowledging that the fast train had become a “taboo subject” in the country due to numerous failed attempts, the debate is back on the table with the second cross-border connection.

“We are going to discuss with the Government of Spain. Ehe issue is not how to go to Madrid, it is how to go to any point on the network of high speed of the Iberian Peninsula”, indicated.

“I can want to go to Madrid, like going to Barcelona, ​​Valencia or Seville. Spain is very beautiful, it’s not just Madrid“, he added when questioned by Efe about a possible high-speed rail connection project between the two countries.

That is why it reduces the urgency about the connection through Badajoz and Elvas, where Infraestruturas de Portugal will inaugurate the first 90 kilometers of its high-speed network next year.

In this way the country “either stays out or stays in. When I say network, it is network“, said the Prime Minister during his speech at the business lunch.

The traditional connection that has been in operation for centuries between Aveiro and Salamanca is also another of its priorities, as the president of the Administração dos Portos do Douro, Leixões e Viana do Castelo, Nuno Araujo, already announced.

Cross-border summits and services

During the last annual bilateral summits, rail connections have been a recurring theme. During A Guarda in 2019, the commitment was achieved to reactivate the route between Galicia and the north of Portugal after two decades of failed attempts.

In this way, he considers that the next Spanish-Portuguese meeting to be held in the autumn in the Minho region will be key to addressing the issue with the Spanish Government.

The only rail link that existed between Lisbon and Madrid was the Lusitania, a night train that linked both capitals in 10 hours whose service was interrupted in March 2020 due to the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic and since then it has not been resumed between doubts about its profitability.

For its part, the Celtic Train between Vigo and Porto is experiencing a period of splendor thanks to the cooperation between Comboios de Portugal and Renfe by lowering its prices to 5 euros. Not even the start of the railway strike in the neighboring country have prevented it from circulating in double composition this weekend.

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