Antonio Morales assures that the insular Corporation meets all the requirements to receive 400 million from the EU, which would be allocated to the first phase of the project, between Vecindario and the airport
The president of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, Antonio Morales, today requested the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, for the endorsement of the state government to be able to access 400 million euros from European funds, with which they could be launched in in the coming months the works on the Gran Canaria train, in the section that runs between Vecindario and the airport, given that the European Union only requests the support of the Spanish State to deliver that aid to the Island.
"Gran Canaria is currently experiencing a special situation, because we have resorted to a European subsidy of 400 million euros, which meets all the requirements and for which we are only asked for the guarantee, the support of the State Government," he said. the first president of the Island. “We have insisted to the minister about the need to provide us with this support, because, by complying with all the requirements, we could begin to collect sufficient resources to begin a first phase of the project, which would allow us to put “An autonomous proposal is underway from Vecindario to the airport.”
This was stated by President Morales, at the end of the working meeting on the Gran Canaria and Tenerife trains that he held in Madrid with Minister Óscar Puente, together with the Minister of Public Works, Housing and Mobility of the Government of the Canary Islands, Pablo Rodríguez; the president of the Cabildo of Tenerife, Rosa Dávila; the Minister of Sustainable Mobility of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, Teodoro Sosa, and the Minister of Sustainable Mobility of the Tenerife Corporation, Eulalia García. On behalf of the Ministry, the Secretary of State for Transport, José Antonio Santano, was present; the Secretary General of Land Transportation, Marta Elías Serrano; the deputy director general of Railway Planning, Jorge Ballesteros, and the director of the Cabinet, Encarnación Sandóniz.
At that meeting, the decision was made to create a working group that, as Morales stressed, "will allow us to ensure that one of the strategic projects of Tenerife and Gran Canaria in sustainable mobility is brought to completion", to immediately influence in that, “in the case of Gran Canaria, we are facing a mature initiative, which has all the technical projects executed, we will have the environmental impact evaluation in this first semester and, in addition, the process for the expropriation of the land has already begun, which It will cost around 16 million euros,” he explained.
And, in his speech, the island president emphasized the special characteristics of the Island, in terms of its population density and the density of vehicles on its roads. “This corridor, which receives four and a half million tourists every year and 14 million passengers from the airport and which hosts the largest industrial, commercial, airport and port area on the island of Gran Canaria, needs a sustainable mobility project such as which we have been working on in recent years,” he stated.
“An area that could have that first phase of the train, that could start operating if we got that endorsement, that support and, therefore, financing from the European Union.”
The leader of the island Government concluded by highlighting the implementation of this work team, “to ensure that the strategic projects of Tenerife and Gran Canaria in Sustainable mobility are completed”, and, finally, he once again insisted on the significance of “that the Government considers the possibility of supporting us, so that we can obtain that subsidy that would allow us to start the project in the coming months or next year.”
