EU watchdog calls Spain’s high-speed network “ineffective”

Spain has received almost half of all funds to finance Europe’s high-speed rail network, reports the EU’s spending watchdog. The European Court of Auditors says the network in Spain and other countries is slow, expensive and “ineffective.” A report published on Tuesday says that between 2000 and 2017, Brussels spent over 11 billion euros on Spain’s high-speed train, the AVE, an amount that accounted for some 47% of the total for the bloc.

Cost to Spanish taxpayers is double that of France, with four times fewer passengers

At the same time, the report finds that Spain’s high-speed rail network has cost the country’s taxpayers more than in other countries. At 1,159 euros per taxpayer, the cost is twice that for French citizens (603 euros). What’s more, people in France use their high-speed trains much more than in Spain, at 19.2 million passengers per kilometre compared to five million passengers per kilometre in Spain. 

Despite the cost, the report says that Europe’s high-speed rail network remains “ineffective” and slow. In fact, the study finds that only half of the trains actually run at their maximum speed, while in most cases they do not carry enough passengers to make them profitable. In Spain, for example, the stretch of the network between Madrid and León runs at 39% of its potential speed, while for the section between Figueres and Perpignan the number is 36%. 

Another aspect criticized by the report is the lack of high-speed connections with other nodes of transport, such as airports. In fact, the plans of the European Commission to connect the continent’s main airports with high-speed lines by 2050 is far from becoming a reality. “Even though the Madrid-Barcelona AVE runs close to two of Spain’s busiest airports, Barajas and El Prat, there are no plans to connect them with high-speed lines,” complains the report. 

For Europe as a whole, the report warns that “the decision to build high-speed lines is often based on political considerations, and cost-benefit analyses are not used generally as a tool to support cost-efficient decision-making." The EU auditors conclude a European high-speed rail network does not exist, "only a patchwork of national high-speed lines, planned and built by the member states in isolation," due to there being no real coordination between states.