CC and PP managed to carry out yesterday the two motions that they presented to the plenary session of the Cabildo to include the South train in the General Interest Railway Network, with the vote against Sí Podemos Canarias (SPC) and the PSOE, and the abstention of Citizens (Cs). After these results, the spokeswoman for Sí Podemos Canarias, María José Belda, stated that “for us it means that, from now on, what we have determined is that our support for the areas that Cs has is not going to have it, and We’ll see next week when the group sits down and assesses”, he commented after the end of the plenary session. Faced with this statement, from the Government group it was assessed that the abstention of Cs has not made a dent in the pact.
It should be remembered that Sí Podemos Canarias had affirmed in the plenary session last January that it would break the government pact with the PSOE if the motion that Cs brought to promote the South train was approved, and that its spokesman, Enrique Arriaga, ended up withdrawing in search of consensus.
In the debate on yesterday’s motions, the CC spokesman, Carlos Alonso, defended that the South train is an “important part” of the solution to the mobility problem and argued that the project “has an analysis and technical studies” , as well as with “social consensus”. “However, we lack effective leadership and management capacity to promote it, there is a fragmentation of the island government and the groups that support it that paralyzes the Island,” he emphasized. Meanwhile, the PP spokesman, Manuel Fernández, criticized the changes of opinion of the PSOE on this project and that “the important thing for this government group is not to obtain European financing, but to save their political chairs.”
For his part, Enrique Arriaga defended the “very clear” support for the BUS-HOV lanes and announced that he is working “with the Government on the drafting of the BUS-HOV lane of the TF-5. And it has been transferred that in its extensions to the third rail in the TF-5 and TF-1, it is BUS-VAO”. In this regard, Cs presented another motion in defense of these lanes and the Insular Plan for Sustainable Mobility, which the Plenary also approved, with the vote against Sí Podemos Canarias, which had presented an amendment to all of it. Regarding the train from the South, Arriaga affirmed that it is “vital” for the Island, so “it needs consensus”, which is why he withdrew the motion that he presented in the previous Plenary. “But CC and PP have presented the same to seek confrontation,” he criticized.
Even so, he stressed that “this is not decided with these motions, but in Madrid” and announced that “the Transport Commission of Congress approved the PNL that Cs presented and in which the Government was urged to promote the guarantee of its financing, that is not going to be achieved now, but in 2023 or 2024”, according to budget availability.
“The train from the South is going to be decided by Tenerife, neither by Madrid nor by you”, replied Belda, who stated that “we defend that what we need in the first place is real participation, not only to know what the public thinks about the train , but what kind of difficulties do we find to move”, because “here they talk about traffic jams in the North, but the solution is to put a train in the South”. She also defended that “there is no citizen consensus” and requested information on how many expropriations of homes it will entail, how much land it will occupy, how much employment it will create and how it will affect the economy.
From the PSOE, Javier Rodríguez stated that “the PSOE is not against the southern train”, but pointed out that “it does not seem to be the right time for an investment of this caliber” and, “in any case, the most relevant thing is the agreement reached in Congress. For this reason, he indicated that “we consider that we must talk about mobility” and “that is why this government group has contracted the Insular Plan for Sustainable Mobility.” “Rail is an efficient medium, but we have to take into account other variables,” he added.
On the other hand, the plenary session of Santa Cruz addressed the train from the South yesterday, with the same result as the motion of the Cabildo.
