The offensive of Castilla y León against Renfe for the suppression of stops of the contrast with which the Board (PP) does not provide funds, unlike other communities, to cover basic services such as those affected, sensitive for its low profitability or use. The autonomies that do participate, with several million euros per year, are Extremadura, Aragon, Andalusia, Euskadi or Catalonia to financially support those trains in areas compromised for their lack of use. The rail operator, which as the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero (PSOE) requested, blames the reform of user and profitability scarcity between the protests of the Board (PP) and civil society. The president of Renfe, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, said a few days ago in the country that this community covers bonds to the user but not to subsidized services that other regions do finance. Castilla y León, meanwhile, has committed “between 60 and 65 million euros per year” to make road transport for free and has rejected state aid.
The keys to this administrative pulse are in the 2003 railway sector, approved by the PP of José María Aznar. Renfe has two categories of services: commercials (bird and long distance, which must cover them as a company without state suffering) and public (are not profitable but important, such as nearby, avant or half distances). The regulations include that if public administrations, from communities to deputations or municipalities, they want more public lines, they must pay them and provide Renfe with the difference in profitability subtracting the income from tickets from the cost, since the entity cannot operate at losses. Castilla y León could request that status if it considered that “the offer of traveler transport services that the operators would carry out, if they exclusively considered their own commercial interest and did not receive any compensation, it will be insufficient or not adapted to the conditions of frequency, quality or price necessary to guarantee communication between different localities of the Spanish territory”.
This would be the current case, as Renfe will change from June 9 stops in Segovia, Medina del Campo (Valladolid) and, suppressing key schedules for some inhabitants, although few according to the operator. “The declaration of public service obligations at the request of the autonomous communities or local corporations will be conditioned to the fact that they assume their financing,” says the regulations, so that if you wanted to strengthen the status of these routes, you should declare them as a public service and join their financing through another agreement with RENFE, such as other regions. Renfe data of 2024: Aragon (PP) dedicated 2.95 million euros per year to compensate for this circulation deficit, Extremadura (PP) put 3.25 million, Andalusia (PP) allocated 7.5 million euros to the weap by 2025.
The measure has altered the political debate. The PP leads the protest, with the government (PSOE) arguing that rail development grows and that in 2013 former president Mariano Rajoy (PP) applied great cuts on the offer in Castilla y León. The autonomous PSOE of Carlos Martínez first was ambiguous, then Martínez called “error” the modification and promised to get involved, although his party voted against a proposition in the courts to recover the trains under Renfe’s argument: “We cannot turn the bird into a vicinity.” Heredia defended this thesis in the country and encouraged the Board to collaborate, like other governments of disparate parties, to protect those eliminated schedules. “The most important thing to vertebrar a territory like Castilla y León is not high speed, but the medium distance. The Board has a very good medium distance compared to other territories, the Avant services with greater offer. That is a subsidized service, with an obligation of public service that finances the government. If they want Subsidy to the traveler, but not to the exploitation deficit, makes the ticket cheaper, but there is no better offer. ”
The community chaired by Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, which will hold elections from here to nine months, does send funds for the use of Renfe with a 25% subsidy of the total cost of high -speed bonds that joins another 25% of the Executive to leave the service at half price for the registered ones. This initiative requires about four million annually, 19.7 since it began in 2022. State and autonomic discounts have encouraged that cities benefited as Valladolid or Segovia have gained population from Madrid and that León, Palencia, Zamora, Salamanca or Burgos also have bonuses. Heredia urges that the Board also invest in the connections compromised to, together with Renfe, provide that service and cover sensitive tours demographically such as the Zamoranos. These have called protests to recover the lost convoys in Sanabria, where they will now stop six, before eight, of the 22 daily convoys that cross the province.
Mañueco recently announced, in full rail controversy and pre -election period, the free road transport for the registered ones, among some complaints because beyond the price there are many areas with a scarcity of buses with functional schedules: “They will reach 15 million annual trips, with an investment of between 60 and 65 million euros a year.” Mañueco has issued this measure between attacks on the Minister of Transportation, the Valladolid Socialist Oscar Puente – “You suppress stops, we give the bus for free” – and this reacted loading against the inaction of the Board to request state funds for this autonomous competition: “You will see when you find out that Castilla y León is the only community that has not requested the aid to transport the second semester of 2025 [que implica descuentos o la gratuidad para menores de 15 años]”In addition, he rebuked the regional PSOE:“ And the opposition in Castilla y León? Well, thank you. “Mañueco said that they did not ask for the funds because” they are well below “what they contribute: the central government, according to spokesmen of the Mobility Ministry, grants 3.6 million euros per year, 6% of the 60 million that the Board will pay. This rejected game is something more than paid by Aragon and Extremadura for those special railway services.
