Staff Reporter
MALAGA’s People’s Party politicians have given up on Madrid and are calling on the European Union to intervene on rail infrastructure investments.
A delegation from the People’s Party, led by Patricia Navarro and made up of mayors from the province, visited Brussels on Tuesday.
They met with members of the European Commission and discussed an array of issues their province faces including on matters of mobility, water, tourism, agriculture, and fisheries.
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A focus of the visit was requesting support for Malaga’s mobility problems.
“We are one of the largest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas in all of Europe, with more than two million inhabitants concentrated in just over 200 kilometers of the Andalusian Mediterranean coastline, where tens of thousands of European citizens are moving to live and work,” Navarro said.
“However, we are abandoned by the Spanish government and are in danger of collapsing if the necessary investments are not made.”
This was discussed with the cabinet of the European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas.
Navarro shared with Tzitzikostas, the growing population in Malaga and the consequential need for major investments in the areas public transport and rail infrastructure.
She said the Spanish government is acting too ‘slow’ to address mobility issues, such as the Costa del Sol train, improving the Commuter rail, expanding the road networks, and allowing subsidies for the coastal road’s motorway.
The delegation invited the Commissioner to visit the Costa del Sol to see the ‘serious risks’ that will become reality if ‘urgent measures are not taken,’ they said.
“The Costa del Sol will collapse if emergency investments are not made in railways, public transport, and roads, and these problems of resource shortages, traffic jams, and water are also a factor driving tourismophobia,” the Malaga Provincial Council president Franciso Salado added.
