The Cabildos of Gran Canaria and Tenerife and the Government of the Canary Islands will present the projects of the railways of both islands to the State and the European community with the aim of obtaining financing to get them going.
The two projects “meet all the required conditions to be able to present themselves with all the guarantees that they can be financed by the European Recovery Plan in the coming years”, the Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands considered this Monday , Sebastián Franquis.
Franquis has met with the vice president and counselor of Infrastructure, Transport and Mobility of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Miguel Ángel Pérez, and the vice president and counselor of the Area of Roads, Mobility and Innovation of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Enrique Arriaga, to deepen and study both projects.
“In recent weeks we have had contact to analyze the prospects that open after learning about the Recovery Plan for Europe approved on June 21”, a plan in which one of the planned programs “gives importance to those investments that have to do with the ecological transition and sustainable mobility “, has detailed Franquis.
The three administrations have agreed this Monday “Propose that the two projects be incorporated into the Reform and Investment Plan that the Government of the Canary Islands will have to present to the Government of Spain in the coming months”, So that the State subsequently presents to the European Union a plan with all the proposals from the different autonomous communities.
The Tenerife railway project will have an investment of 2,200 million euros and includes both the section between Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Adeje such as the tram section between La Laguna and the airport in the north of the island, in another phase.
The Tenerife counselor has assured that the agreement reached to unify the two railway projects is “very important”, given that it will allow “equipping the island with a sustainable and intelligent infrastructure.”
Regarding the project of railway in Gran Canaria, Franquis has specified that this would unite Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Maspalomas and would have an investment of approximately 1,650 million euros.
The Gran Canaria counselor recalled that “more than 85% of the population of Gran Canaria is located on the axis of the island between the capital and the Maspalomas area”, so this project “is going to modernize the island and allow sustainable mobility ”because“ it is powered exclusively by wind energy ”.
In addition, the Cabildo de Gran Canaria has invested some 27 million euros in the last eleven years for the drafting of the project.
Both the Gran Canaria railway project and that of Tenerife are “highly developed and practically completed”, given that they have already been drawn up, have approved the territorial plans and only lack environmental reports on which the Canary Islands Government is already working. highlighted the Canarian Minister of Public Works and Transport.
Franquis has insisted that the fact that the Government of the Canary Islands assumes both projects as their own and unified will allow them to “fight” for their financing in Europe and “will be a bet” of the Executive for “sustainable mobility”.
The three administrations, which also will create a technical commission, they will return to meet during the second half of September to continue with the development of the unified project, which they plan to present before October 30 to the State and They hope that it can be awarded during the next year 2021.
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