How is it possible that a basic rail infrastructure such as the Mediterranean Corridor, which would allow economic development with multiplier effects from Portbou to Algeciras is, after so many years, still 85% incomplete? Is there any credibility in the speeches of successive Spanish governments claiming that it is a fundamental project when the route is being built at a despairing snail's pace? These questions must have been in the minds of the indignant business sector representatives who met this Thursday in Barcelona to demand from the Spanish government and its ministry of development the speedy completion of the transport artery. And they did so with an almost Franciscan patience, because in the contest between the completion of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona and the opening of the Mediterranean Corridor one could easily take bets and wait to see who wins.
In a serious country, it would be a real scandal that more than 1,500 business people from Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia have held their sixth annual meeting demanding that the Mediterranean Corridor be finished and that in response they continue to receive promises and more promises after the 25 years of delays that the work has accumulated. If as well as this we consider the fact that the politically-prioritized, radial Spain centred on Madrid - José María Aznar's authentic obsession of a capital that was at the centre of all projects - over other peripheral commitments, such as circular Spain, we will surely find the answer to many of the questions. There are many ways to stifle the development of the territories and economic asphyxiation is one of the most obvious. Because behind the Mediterranean Corridor there are jobs and there is economic progress.
In Catalonia it has been talked about for more than forty years, although it is true that for many years with little media impact. It has been more recently, with the Valencian business boom, that the two territories have shared a project with a colossal scale and which has the numbers to generate an impact with exceptional dimensions on the entire Mediterranean arc. Adding Murcia and Andalusia has given it a length of more than 1,000 kilometres, it has brought together territories that can scarcely agree on other things and you would think that in the end it would be a problem for any Spanish government not to act. "It's an offence for those of us who make up the Mediterranean Corridor that we do not have a connection that joins all of our important cities" or "it doesn't matter which government, there's no progress", are phrases from the lips of Joan Roig, the president of Mercadona - a true totem of the business world and not some opposition political leader.
The minister Raquel Sánchez announced that the connection between Almeria and France by train will be ready in 2026 and that the full corridor will be finished by 2030. After so many unfulfilled promises by Spanish governments it is hard to believe that this date is the right one. The ideal would be a closed schedule of sections to be completed in 2022 and the same for successive years. Because, if not, it turns out that everything is planned to be done near the end and, when the day comes, the minister of the day has changed and it's time to start again. We have seen it too many times to think that this time will be different and that for once the deadlines will be met. There is too much at stake to refrain from being demanding and distrustful, because in the stories of how things have actually worked out it is the Spanish government who is at fault, no matter how much it claims that this time it will be different.