Brussels orders to Spain to recover the deep ones distributed for the railway center for high speed CEATF



The EU commission has invited Spain to recover the aids publics granted to the Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (ADIF), the state society that manages the Spanish railway infrastructure, in order to construct a center for the experimentation of the high railway speed near Malaga, in Andalusia. According to Brussels, in fact, draft of an aid of State that does not correspond to a real objective of common interest and, in particular, does not contribute to promote the sustainable development in the region.

The total investment for the realization of center, called CEATF (Centro de Ensayos de Alta Tecnología Ferroviaria), piles to 358,6 million euros. The structure includes a railway circuit on which the trains can reach speed much high one, until 520 kilometers per hour, and installations for the test, the approval and the development of rotabile material and infrastructural and sovrastrutturali elements. The Europe Commission has explained that, second the data communicated from Spain in September 2013, the public financing would have had to be distributed the manager of the infrastructure ADIF that would have had the property of the CEATF, while instead - second ascertained how much from the investigation carried out from the Commission - beginning from 2011, in violation of the communitarian norms, Spain had already distributed 140,7 million euros to the ADIF before the Commission adopted its decision.

The Commission has specified that the investigation has revealed that the project is not in compliance with the norms EU on the aids of State because does not answer to a real objective of common interest as producing not sussisterebbe some interest for the market in the development of that they operate so to elevated speeds and, in lack of the question of such specific services, use it of structures CEATF practically would be limited to the test of trains and usable equipments until a 320-350 speed kilometers per hour.

The Commission has found moreover that, although the state financing, no private investor has expressed interest to participate to the financing neither the project contributes the objective to promote the sustainable development of Andalusia. According to Brussels, the project would have therefore an impact in the short term with the temporary creation of necessary places of work for the construction of the center and the costs publics sproporzionatamente would be elevated; moreover Spain has not succeeded to demonstrate that the benefits of the project are advanced to the costs of construction and exercise of the center.

The Commission has concluded that, so as is conceived, the project would create a distortion of the competition in fact subsidizing a new operator of the market and has ordered to Spain to recover the deep ones that already is distributed to the ADIF.