Train crash due to barriers to reach Paris: the Government raises the tone against France for obstructing the expansion of Renfe

The friction between Spain and France due to the unequal liberalization of train transport, which allowed companies from both countries to enter the other's market, has been going on for years at the ministerial level or at the railway companies through continuous calls for attention.. However, now the Government has decided to raise the tone in the face of what it considers to be truly unfair competition on the part of France.. In just one week, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, has denounced that France is dragging its feet in its obligation to allow Renfe to expand its presence there before the European Commission and has reiterated this to the French ambassador in Madrid in an undiplomatic conversation.. The tip of the iceberg is the delayed arrival of the Spanish high-speed train to Paris, but this train crash also includes the strangulation of the routes that already exist and the slowness with which France is doing its part to connect Spain by high speed with the rest of Europe through the Atlantic and Mediterranean corridors.

According to several sources in the sector, the conflict with France is not new at all, but the difference is the “outrightness” with which Puente has decided to air it and speak directly about “unfair competition” between France and Spain, to the surprise of some. accustomed to the discretion of the past, and the naturalness with which others see it, given the profile of the new minister of the branch, who they say goes very directly to the issues.

Puente already referred to the barriers for Renfe in France when the French socialist Segolénè Royal attacked Spanish tomatoes as “inedible” in the midst of a wave of protest by French farmers who accused Spanish products of introducing cheaper products into their market.. His response was that the real imbalance occurred in the railway sector. Last Thursday, he went one step further in an interview in Espejo Público in which he aired “a rather tough meeting with the French ambassador.”. “We have heard the Government talk about unfair competition in agriculture, Royal talk about our tomatoes, but we are suffering from this unfair competition in railway matters with France,” he added.

What followed from there was a collection of grievances that the Government reproaches France for in the slow expansion of Renfe on French roads as a counterpart to a liberalization of the sector that gave entry into Spain to the high-speed trains of Ouigo, a company owned by the French Renfe, the CNCF, and Iryo, from Treintalia. “They come to Spain and compete with us,” said Puente, who even complained that France “forces” Renfe to bring its trains to Spain for maintenance work, when here no distinction is made between Renfe, Ouigo or Iryo convoys. which, for example, undergo their inspections at bases such as the high-speed one in Vallecas that has just been expanded. “They refuse to give us a workshop,” he denounced.

Delays on the line to Paris

The key to all these complaints is reflected in the impossibility that still exists for the AVE to reach Paris from Madrid, on a line that already enters French territory but ends in Lyon, with a branch in Marseille.. Railway sources claim that “Renfe will end up operating in Paris”, but while there are delays in approving trains and safety equipment and, more generally, in allowing free movement of Spanish trains on French soil.

The origin of the conflict dates back to the process of liberalization of rail transport of people and goods through EU directives that were approved in the early 2000s to replicate on the train what had happened decades before with the plane, with the creation of the Single European Area, which eliminated the monopoly of the flag airlines of the countries that linked two points – for example, a Madrid-Paris only operated by Iberia or Air France – to give entry to other airlines. With them came low-cost, in the same way that low-cost rail services did a few years ago.. The French OUIGO and the Italian Iryo began to compete with Renfe trains in exchange for the freedom that Renfe would have to enter the French market.

“Spain scrupulously complies with the European directive,” assures the managing director of the Spanish Railways Foundation, Adrián Fernández Carrasco.. “It was the first where three different operators have entered high-speed lines and it involves the legal guarantee that has been given to Ouigo and Iryo,” adds Fernández Carrasco, who emphasizes that this allows for “greater use” of the network. and that “more people can travel by train.”

Other countries have not been as diligent, such as Germany or France, which represents a greater problem for Spanish trains because it is a border country.. At the moment, the AVE reaches Lyon and “rare” difficulties and delays are detected in obtaining technical approvals for its trains, as well as in having operating shifts and in expanding beyond, thus frustrating the objective of reaching Paris, where The Italian Iryo does arrive from Milan.

Not only the Spanish Government says it, but also the French regulator of the railway sector itself.. In a report on 2022 published last year, it stated that “the entry of high-speed passenger transport services is a path strewn with technical difficulties”, with “entry brakes” that, among others, it recognizes that Renfe and identified among them what the sector in Spain recognizes as the great difficulty, related to the technical approval of trains, such as the maintenance aspect, for which the regulator recognizes that there are no spaces in France to take convoys from companies from other countries. and, no less important, the distribution of the network's capacities, that is, the shifts in which each line will be able to operate, which, in addition to being scarce, have always been communicated to Renfe with little notice and which, according to what the sector points out, could be at the origin of these latest public messages from Puente a Francia.

The railway sector assures that liberalization was “exemplary” in Epsñaa, which “strictly” applied the European directives. Thus, in 2005 Renfe, which until now had been responsible for the service and infrastructure, was divided into Renfe Operadora – for operations – and Adif, manager of railway infrastructure in which any company has a place, regardless of the country. , as long as it complies with the CNMC rules and pays the fees with which it contributes to paying the high cost of infrastructure. As a consequence, passengers have seen how ticket prices have dropped significantly, particularly on lines that were previously as expensive as Madrid-Barcelona, in a competition that also included Renfe's low-cost Avlo.

In France, Renfe began operating in 2013, first in collaboration with its historical company, CNCF, and alone from 2023 through a system different from the Spanish one, which instead of creating a new company to manage the infrastructures, these remain under the control of CNCF through a holding model. The Spanish Government detects a conflict of interest for the party responsible for infrastructure to allow other companies to compete with CNCF itself.

“We have a lot of problems to advance in cross-border communications with France by rail and road, it is a tremendously protectionist attitude. We demand a minimum of reciprocity and that the rules of market liberalization in the EU be ensured,” the Minister of Transport demanded this week.

Petition in Brussels for “France to comply”

Puente's complaint has not only been on television or in an apparently undiplomatic meeting with the French ambassador.. At the end of January and in the midst of agricultural protests in France that were blocking the transport of goods, also in Spanish trucks, the minister met in Brussels with the Transport Commissioner, Adina Vălean, to whom, among other issues, he conveyed “the need for France complies with its obligation to build the sections in its territory that make up the Trans-European Transport Network, which should allow, for example, a train from Portugal to reach Poland.

This is another case in which Paris is also “dragging its feet” due to the delays it foresees in its contribution to the European network, on which it depends that Spanish trains can continue on their way throughout Europe.

The victims of this strangulation have well-known names, the Mediterranean Corridor and the Atlantic Corridor.. The Spanish Government is making an “unprecedented” investment effort to have them ready on the planned dates, 2025-2026, while the dates that France is considering to complete works in its territory that, for example, should unify the European gauge, They extend until 2030-2035.

“There is a bottleneck in France,” they lament in the sector. With the deadlines with which Paris works, for example, a train will be able to run between Barcelona and Perpignan at high speed -200-250 km/h- but then it will have to go down to 140 km/h until it reaches another high-speed track in Montpellier. .