SPAIN’S new minister for transport and sustainable mobility, Mr Óscar Puente, has begun a large-scale reorganisation of the railway sector that the Spanish press has dubbed “revolutionary,” and which has cost Ms María Luisa Domínguez, president of infrastructure manager Adif, her job.
The Spanish government has confirmed that Domínguez will be replaced by Mr Ángel Contreras Marín, an engineer who has been with Adif since 2011.
Meanwhile, Mr José Antonio Santano, the former mayor of the city of Irún, has been appointed secretary of state for transport at the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (Mitma). He will take over from acting secretary Mr David Lucas Parrón, who replaced Ms Isabel Pardo de Vera, who resigned in the wake of a scandal earlier this year when it was discovered that 31 new metre-gauge trains built by CAF could not fit through several existing tunnels.
The appointment of Santano has been met with some scepticism, according to Diario de Transporte, since he is a politician rather than a professional, with no experience of the sector.
General secretariat
Puente has also redrawn the organisational chart of the top level of the Spanish railway sector, abolishing the two current general secretariats for infrastructure and transport respectively. This has raised some eyebrows especially in Catalonia as it means the dismissal of Mr Xavier Flores, until now general secretary for infrastructure and a successful chief negotiator with the Catalan government on various difficult infrastructure projects.
Instead, there will be two new general secretariats, one for land transport and one for air and maritime transport.
The former will in turn be divided into three general directorates for roads, road transport, and railways, respectively. Mr Carlos María Juárez, Adif’s former director of functional planning, has been appointed the new general director for the railway directorate. He will report back to the new secretary general of land transport, Ms Marta Serrano, an engineer who until now has been the managing director of the municipal transport company of Valencia.
Puente, a former mayor of Valladolid who was appointed in a cabinet reshuffle last month, has said that the changes should be seen as “an attempt to ensure that the different modes of transport are treated equally.”
