News
The people’s paper ISSUE NO. 1844
5 - 11 November 2020
COSTA DE ALMERIA • WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM
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SLOWCOACH AVE
IT is almost certain that the AVE high speed train will not reach Almeria in 2023. Manuel de la Fuente, the central government’s Subdel egate to Almeria, nevertheless revealed that €395 million of the €600 million 2021 Budget assignment for Spain’s railways will be spent on the Almeria Murcia AVE line. De la Fuente blamed the de lay on “obstructions” in Lorca in neighbouring Murcia, ex plaining that the absence of a “definitive project” there had resulted in an inevitable holdup. The different sections of the line now under construction were not independent, he said. To reach Murcia from Alme ria it was necessary to go through Lorca and progress could not be made until the problem there was resolved, he stressed. De la Fuente was answering the Almeria Chamber of Com merce’s Railway Committee
STILL WAITING: AVE unlikely to arrive by 2023. Photo credit: Pixabay
whose members admitted that they regarded as “improbable” the promises made by the for mer Partido Popular govern ment and the present PSOE Unidas Podemos coalition. The SubDelegate argued that if the present government had referred to 2023 “it was
because this was the date set by the former ministerial team.” If the previous team had gone ahead they, too, would also have found it “completely impossible” to keep their promise to deliver the com pleted AVE line on time.
“There has been a lot of de bate about dates,” De la Fuente said. “I think that it is more rele vant to know that the Almeria Murcia AVE line will be com pleted. I have said so ad nauseum,” he declared. “It is essential to be aware of the scale of investment that is required. It is the province’s most important, complex and significant undertaking.” De la Fuente added that splitting hairs over small de tails like a “a year more or a year less” were irrelevant when those taking part in the debate were well aware of the complexity of the work itself and the red tape involved.