Malaga city council demands Minister of Transport's 'immediate resignation' amid continuous AVE rail suspension

Malaga city council is petitioning for the "immediate resignation" of Minister of Transport Óscar Puente and the head of rail infrastructure company Adif, declaring them "responsible for the negligent management that has caused irreparable economic and employment damage to the province".

Meanwhile, Mayor of Malaga Francisco de la Torre abstained from supporting the petition during this week's local council meeting. On previous occasions, he has highlighted his good relationship with Puente from the time the minister was Mayor of Valladolid. It is not clear whether De la Torre will ultimately decide to support the motion of hard-right party Vox.

Councillor for transport Trini Hernández said on Thursday: "We were not going to support that point, but in view of the minister's statements yesterday in the lower house, we've decided otherwise."

Hernández has warned that Puente will end up being "the worst Transport Minister of all democracy". According to her, Puente has shown "a lack of respect for all the people of Malaga", as well as for the city's business fabric and press.

As former director of the traffic authorities in Malaga, Hernández considers it unacceptable that "Malaga has been without a direct high-speed train connection for more than two months", calling it "a connectivity crisis that is generating disastrous consequences for Malaga".

While Hernández acknowledges the complexity of the work to repair the tracks in Álora, she says that rain could not serve as an alibi for everything that is happening. According to the councillor, there has been a major maintenance issue in the railway system for years.

On Thursday, Hernández harshly criticised Puente for allowing the sale of AVE tickets and "creating false expectations" when trains kept getting cancelled. The councillor stated that this has implied "losses in the tourist sector, employment, the worst hotel bookings in the whole of Andalucía during Easter, even worse than Jaén".

SUR recently spoke to the owner of a café in the Vialia shopping centre that houses the train station in Malaga. José Luis Aguilar complained of having to lay off staff and income losses of up to 70 per cent due to the lack of customers. According to him, the government has demonstrated a lack of compassion for Malaga's business owners.

Vox spokesperson Antonio Alcázar highlighted the "deeper problem" in the "progressive deterioration of strategic infrastructure", which isolates Malaga. As a result, Alcázar said, the city loses tourists and business opportunities. The spokesperson stated that the failed promises of the government to reopen the high-speed rail only create "mistrust".

Meanwhile, opposition spokesperson Jorge Quero asked the councillors to see things as they are - the government using all the means at its disposal to fix the issue, while ensuring rail safety above all else. He reminded them that the government had allocated 20 million euros to the victims of the Adamuz train crash.

Quero also corrected Alcázar by stating that the high-speed train reaches Antequera at the moment, which is within Malaga province. Quero also used the opportunity to remind the councillors that the regional government, led by the same party as Malaga, spent six months to repair a major road in Ronda last year.

Another socialist spokesperson - Nico Sguiglia - said that the matter has been blown out of proportion and that "the real crisis in the city is housing". "Certain sectors can earn a little less, but what worries us is the employment situation, the workers," he told the council.

PP and Vox voted in favour of the resignation of Minister Puente and the head of Adif, Pedro Marco de la Peña (19 in favour, 11 against). A unanimous vote was in favour of urging the government to continue working "as a priority on the Valle de Abdalajís aquifer in order to guarantee the structural safety of the line in the long term and avoid future disconnections".