The Atlantic Arc was made up (until Brexit) of 29 regions of the countries that make up the Atlantic façade of the European Union (Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom). Some 2,500 kilometers of coastline; 625,000 square kilometers of surface (28% of the EU) and 50 million inhabitants (20% of the EU) that contribute 11% of the GDP. It is a fragmented territory with major ruptures in its extensive perimeter, with very different and unequal production structures, which makes it difficult or impossible to structure an economic axis due to the weak web of interrelationships that exist between the cities and regions of its Atlantic façade and in which only We find a relevant homogeneity in those regions in which its peripheral character and its consequences are most strongly manifested: economic decline, depopulation and disarticulation of the territory.
In addition, there are not many cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants and the large Atlantic cities (Lisbon, Porto, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Glasgow, Nantes and Dublin) exercise a certain dominance over their respective areas of influence. In this heterogeneous and unequal framework it is necessary to situate and analyze the call of the Lendakari Urkullu to create a Macro-region with Asturias, Cantabria and Galicia, extensible to the incorporation of other territories.
First of all, we are going to segment the Atlantic Arc and focus the analysis on the Porto-Bordeaux section, a space in which the Basque Country has always shown a desire for leadership and a supposed capacity to achieve economic hegemony. Secondly, reductionist, but necessary, to simplify the analysis, we are going to choose three relevant factors for the success of the strategy: the consolidation of a large and functionally efficient conurbation, a powerful railway network connected to a large port and a large logistics platform, the three articulated with each other.
The Basque Government is deploying all its influence to reinforce its privileged situation now that Brexit, the delay in the connection with France and the development of the European Union towards the East may weaken its integration in areas of future growth.
The urban area that makes up the triangle of Bilbao, San Sebastián and Vitoria is having many difficulties to function as a metropolitan area, with a very low level of interrelation of flows between the three cities and little capacity to take advantage of specialization and complementarity that it would entail. The other conurbation, in this cross-border case, the San Sebastián-Bayona Eurocity, a 50-kilometre corridor and 525,000 inhabitants, needs high speed to achieve greater functional backbone, although it could have fewer drawbacks than the triangle to achieve an interrelation of flows faster and more powerful. We may be at the gates of a de facto Basque-Aquitaine Euroregion.
The Basque railway “Y” is configured as a hinge for the different corridors: the so-called “Basque Rotula” (DOT, 1994) towards Madrid, through the Ebro valley towards the Mediterranean and towards France. Its conclusion, including the French section, is crucial for the interests of the Basque Government and will simultaneously favor both the internal articulation of the territory and the connections with Madrid and Europe.
The port of Bilbao–El Abra is the fourth in Spain in terms of traffic and the most important on the Cantabrian coast. The Basque Government has always considered it the gateway to the rest of the world. Ricardo Barkala, president of the Bilbao Port Authority, stated that “Bilbao has the vocation of being the port of reference for the peninsular ports of the Atlantic, it must lead the freight traffic of the Atlantic, not only with Europe but also with the North of the continent American” (03/14/2023).
Thus, together with the logistics platforms, some outside the Basque territory, Bilbao aspires to become the great intermodal transport “Hub” in the European Atlantic Arc.
In this context of great complexity, the lucidity with which the journalist Vicente Montes (LA NUEVA ESPAÑA, 03/14/2023) places the Basque stake to forge a Cantabrian alliance makes sense, with the excuse of the Atlantic Euroregion, which is ” an indirect way of starting a battle for leadership over a quarter of the territory of the Iberian Peninsula”.
The difficult or impossible coexistence between cooperation and the definition of a convergent strategy that supposes a unitary Agreement and the competition that each part of the Euroregion is supposed to define and fight for its priorities in political action, does not portend a happy and raises some questions: What specific needs can be addressed together? What instruments are available to carry out the proposed actions? What institutions or what actors are called to carry out the actions that are presented? If it is about gaining muscle and influence in the pressure to obtain advantages or impose decisions, we can already imagine who is not going to take the cat into the water.
Cooperation and agreement may be reasonably possible and interesting only in certain non-irrelevant issues, such as an external threat that affects all parties or regulatory measures that may affect everyone without causing harm to anyone and others of a similar profile.
Asturias’ priorities
Once the railway communication with the plateau has been resolved, a historical strategic decision that today it does not make sense to discuss but rather to support its completion, extension and improvement, an important part of the actions that are proposed are extracted from the reflections that have led us here. , adapted to our uniqueness and the special morphology of our territory. Briefly stated, they would be the following:
1. Strengthening of the central metropolitan area
Close experience of normative use does not advise insisting, but postponing its use. A combination of preventive actions to avoid the adulteration of the interstitial spaces of the area and a firm commitment to investment in “cercanías” can significantly increase the daily interrelation between cities and pave the way for a slow dissolution of the perverse localism that prevents proper management. most rational of the territory.
2. Specific attention to the Southwest
In two decades, the Southwest has undergone a total de-industrialization process and an accelerated demographic decline in its five municipalities. Soon I will publish a paper on the subject and I will propose the assumption of certain measures.
3. The two ports
The port of El Musel, belonging to the basic network, and that of Avilés, belonging to the global network, have to play a transcendent role. The first, without forgetting its great bulk and liquid tradition, has to diversify its traffic and increase containerization. The second has at the foot of the shipment an extraordinary industrial output of large pieces from a very thriving Asturian sector. A coordination and specialization of both would be convenient.
4. La Zalia
La Zalia is a logistics platform that requires good rail access and connection to ports. Our future will depend to a great extent on the correct articulation of the Metropolitan Area, the ports and Zalia.
5. The Transcantabrian Corridor
The Transcantábrico Corridor deserves and demands singular treatment. The Lendakari Urkullu was not well informed when he cited, perhaps as a bargaining chip, the extension of the AVE through the Asturian coastal plain. This space can never be a “space of flows” but a “space of places”, characterized by relations of contiguity, the existence of a network of small towns and other smaller nuclei, which requires a railway, a MiniAVE that reaches 150/160 kilometers/hour and that provides service to this network of small and medium-sized nuclei without endangering the fragility of the territory.
6. The Subcantabrian Axis
The heavy traffic would be channeled either through the ports, or through the railway connection through León and the Subcantabrian to reach the Mediterranean and the French border.
7. Exploiting Las Vegas
The exploitation of the vegas located “downstream” of the rivers with preference for small fruits of high unit value and rising demand.
8. The mountains
A forest policy that integrates the defense of the environment with a rational exploitation of the mount and the forest. A necessary complement, in addition, for the viability of many livestock farms.
Many of these strategic priorities can find very powerful competitors in our Cantabrian area; Their level of success will depend on the good preparation, a certain daring not exempt from common sense of our rulers and also on the audacity of our businessmen. I expect much less, almost nothing, from the aforementioned macro-region.
