Raquel Sánchez, bis Montag noch Chefin von dem gerade von ihr geschassten Renfe-Chef Isaías Táboas, hatte bis vor Kurzem nicht viel Ahnung von Schienenverkehr und Infrastruktur. Die Transportministerin ist erst seit 2021 im Amt und hat wohl die schlimmsten Wochen ihrer bisher sehr erfolgreichen Karriere als Lokalpolitikerin in Katalonien hinter sich.
In 2019, Renfe ordered 31 local trains for northern Spain for 251 million euros - with wrong dimensions. The trains did not fit through some tunnels in Asturias and Cantabria. Luckily for Raquel Sánchez, she wasn't in office yet. That's also why Táboas had to go and not her, they say. The Catalan by choice was brought into office in 2018 by Prime Minister and party colleague Pedro Sánchez.
His current successor, the Catalan and socialist Raül Blanco, is an engineer, but he is also responsible for technical errors in the Ministry of Industry when awarding EU aid for the auto industry and therefore had to resign at the end of 2022 as Secretary General for the “Industry and SMEs " say goodbye. The conservative opposition camp criticizes nepotism. All of this hits the state railway at a critical moment, since after the purchase of Leo Express in Eastern Europe last year, it also started operating high-speed lines in France for the first time, where a branch had just been founded. The Spaniards have also been involved in prestige projects in Poland, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and the USA for years. A dedicated international branch has just been launched, to bundle foreign activities. Táboas is responsible for all of this.
Renfe's train disaster is damaging the industry's image
For the right-wing People's Party PP, the scandal comes at just the right time. End of this year will be in Spaina new parliament was elected and Renfe's internal affairs are torpedoing the efforts of the social democrat Pedro Sánchez to impress his voters with economic successes. "It could be that some expansion plans are now being slowed down by this embarrassing scandal," says Victor Ruiz Espeleta, who himself worked as an engineer in Spanish rail transport and now teaches at the EAE Business School. Spain, which has so far been regarded as a global reference for the rail network because of its modernity, innovation, safety and service, is now fighting for the image of its state railway, which works with Deutsche Bahn in numerous international consortia and even made profits for the first time before the pandemic under Táboas.
The AVE train has become a Spanish export hit, which the Germans are also jealous of. Now the German media are almost gratefully taking up the Spanish scandal. After Renfe tried to sweep the technical shortcomings of local trains under the carpet, many critics felt confirmed when Pedro Sánchez took office, who demanded that competence and not party affinity should play a role in filling state offices.
Renfe owes a lot to the EU
„Dank der Milliarden an EU-Infrastrukturhilfen konnte das Land sein Netz ausbauen, enorme Expertise gewinnen und sich modernisieren, während Deutschland wenig investiert hat,“ muss INECO-Chef Sergio Vázquez Torrón im Interview eingestehen. Durch die enormen Aktivitäten der vergangenen Jahre im eigenen Land seien spanische Infrastrukturunternehmen wie ACS zu Weltmarktführern geworden, welche die staatlichen Unternehmen wie Renfe immer im Schlepptau hätten. Dabei bleibt die Schiene Staatsangelegenheit, an Privatisierung ist überhaupt nicht zu denken. Auch in diesem Jahr wird die spanische Regierung knapp 12 Millionen Euro in die Staatsbahn und den Netzbetreiber Adif investieren, sieben Prozent mehr als im vergangenen Jahr.
The liberalization of passenger traffic, on the other hand, was only initiated last year, unlike in Germany, which gave the state railway time to prepare for the moment, says Vázquez Torrón, who also belongs to the sphere of influence of the ruling PSOE and is also not an engineer. "It doesn't matter, they're supposed to run the business, others are then responsible for the technical work, but as the boss they have to take the blame, as in the case of the 31 trains," says Ruiz. Nevertheless, there is still a lot to improve at Renfe.
