A 20-year state pact to invest in and accelerate urgent works for Barcelona such as La Sagrera station, the expansion of the Airport and the Mediterranean Corridor. This is the proposal launched by Foment del Treball to promote infrastructure development by the Generalitat and the central Government. The employers' association estimates that investment in infrastructure by both administrations should increase by 1,500 million euros each year.
"Investments in infrastructure are not an expense, because they are profitable and lead to an improvement in the lives of citizens," said the president of the Cambra de Contractistes d'Obres de Catalunya (CCOC) and vice-president of Foment, Lluís Moreno, at the presentation of the updated Catalog of basic infrastructures for Catalonia (CAT100).
According to the employers' association, Catalonia suffers from an accumulated deficit of investment in infrastructure by the Generalitat and the State, while "the local world is more proactive." Foment estimates that the deficit is around 42,500 million euros in the last 15 years, and they consider that Catalonia should invest up to 2.2% of its GDP to match countries of its size, such as Denmark or the Netherlands.
To set the direction for progress, Foment has listed the 10 actions it considers most necessary, such as La Sagrera station, the completion of metro lines L9 and L10, the tram connection to Francesc Macià, the expansion of El Prat Airport or the new accesses to the Port of Barcelona. Beyond the metropolitan area, actions such as the improvement of the AP-7 and AP-2 highways, the Mediterranean Corridor in Tarragona, the Lleida intermodal station, the expansion of the Tordera desalination plant and the Empordà intermodal platform in Vilamalla also stand out. In addition to these priority actions, the employers' association has compiled up to 100 key actions for economic development.
First, Foment advocates for improving rail mobility. "It is imperative to solve the Rodalies issue," Moreno stated. Investments should focus on the Rodalies Plan, the completion of metro lines L9 and L10, the Camp de Tarragona tram, and the new Sagrera station, a project that "would change the center of gravity of the metropolitan area," according to the vice-president of the employers' association, who recalled that there are still 600 million euros to be tendered from a Rodalies plan worth over 6.3 billion euros. On the other hand, and also related to improving mobility, they advocate for improving the road network, and Foment particularly misses two major road axes: from Ràpita to Vielha, and from Tarragona to Andorra.
The expansion of El Prat Airport is another priority for the employers' association, which hopes that the expansion project can be unblocked. A technical commission with representatives from the Department of Territory, the Ministry of Transport, Aena, and external experts is working on it. With this eventual expansion, its capacity could increase to 70 million passengers annually, well above the 55 million travelers with which El Prat closed this year and with which it is rubbing its current limit. Moreno argued that this project would also mean the arrival of larger planes to boost international trade, an area in which Barcelona is below smaller airports like Zaragoza. International planes "are the most profitable, least polluting, and carry more goods," the vice-president of the employers' association concluded.
Foment has emphasized the need to also improve freight rail transport to decongest road traffic. Currently, only 4% of freight transport is done by rail, far from the European average, which is around 18%, which is why it considers the Mediterranean Corridor an essential infrastructure.
Beyond mobility, the employers' association also emphasizes the urgency of investing in water self-sufficiency to cope with drought episodes. "We should not repeat situations of citizen and business stress like we have experienced with the last drought, which has meant ruin for businesses both in the countryside and in the city," Moreno stressed. For this reason, they advocate for investments such as the expansion of the Tordera desalination plant or connecting the Tarragona and Olèrdola networks for emergency cases. In parallel, the catalog also includes other actions related to logistics platforms, the creation of a biomedical hub around the Bellvitge Hospital and the new Hospital Clínic, as well as the modernization of the ports of Barcelona and Tarragona.