Around 300 businessmen from Catalonia and Valencia highlighted the need to build the Mediterranean Railway Corridor. This infrastructure would facilitate the transport of freight and passengers non-stop from Gibraltar to Central Europe and would connect the Spanish Mediterranean ports; an investment which, despite being essential not only for the Spanish economy but for the entire European economy as well, has been repeatedly delayed.
The delays in the construction of the infrastructure are affecting private investment. According to the Catalan Minister for Planning and Sustainability, Josep Rull, the pending business investments are worth EUR 300 million, among which EUR 20 million corresponds to an investment from the German multinational BASF, which announced it will expand one of its plants in Tarragona, he explained last autumn.
Besides the Spanish Government’s repeated delays and failures to comply with the agreed compromises regarding the Corridor, the businessmen also lamented that the second and third cities in Spain, that is to say Barcelona and Valencia, are still not linked through the High Speed Trains Network.
“The main problems are the lack of political will”, stated Vicente Boluda, president of the Valencian Association of Businessmen, one of the organisers of the conference. Joan José Brugera, President of ‘Cercle d’Economia’,the main Catalan economic forum open to businesspeople and academics, called for convincing politicians that “the Corridor is in Spain’s general interest, since it improves the competitiveness of the Mediterranean area”.
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