The future of rail transport in southern Gran Canaria now has an official driver, and he's traveling from the offices of the Ministry of Transport in Madrid. The Canary Islands Government has sealed a strategic administrative engineering deal: the purchase of a single share of Ineco, the state-owned company under the umbrella of the ministry headed by Óscar Puente. By making Ineco the preferred technical service provider, the government reduces the space for private consulting and engineering firms to compete on equal terms for these lucrative contracts.
With a symbolic outlay of €1.450,27—as part of a capital increase for the company—the Canary Islands government is not seeking financial gain, but rather a legal loophole. By becoming a shareholder, the regional government can declare Ineco as a "personalized entity." In practice, this means that the Canary Islands Government and the Island Councils can bypass the complex and lengthy international public tenders and directly award the state-owned company the contracts for the studies, planning, and implementation of the train lines to Maspalomas and southern Tenerife.
The maneuver is not limited to the delegation of functions. The agreement designates the Minister of Public Works, Housing, and Mobility, Pablo Rodríguez, as the Canary Islands' representative on the General Assembly and the Board of Directors of Ineco. This move is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it guarantees that the Canary Islands have a direct voice in the highest decision-making body of Spain's most powerful state-owned engineering firm. On the other hand, it inextricably links the success or failure of the islands' trains to the management of this state-owned company, delegating technical sovereignty to an entity that, although expert, is hierarchically subordinate to directives from Madrid.
The Regional Ministry justifies this decision by citing Ineco's "extensive experience and expertise" in land infrastructure. The aim is for the Island Councils, which have been stuck for decades in the study and impact assessment phase, to finally have top-tier technical support to tackle projects with a total investment exceeding €4.000 billion. The decision to hand over strategic mobility projects to a public company controlled by the Ministry of Transport has raised concerns.
The Canary Islands government has opted for "institutional security" and an alliance with Óscar Puente's ministry to try and unlock the railway dream. From now on, the Gran Canaria and South Tenerife trains will depend not only on EU and Madrid funding, but also on the capacity of a state-owned company that has already been tasked with beginning to design the future of transport in the islands.
