The supporters of the High-Speed Train, particularly the governments of Spain, Madrid, Vitoria and Pamplona, but also the most profitable cement and engineering companies, have in recent days received an extraordinary slap from independent experts. In short, at the parliamentary headquarters they explained that the APR – and in particular the Basque Y – should never start to be built, because from a financial point of view it is neither viable nor sustainable, from an environmental and social point of view.

The institutions are proposed to stop the project and, if it goes ahead, reform the high-speed line with a high-speed line in the middle. The initial project aims to connect the three capitals of the CAV and connect Pamplona/Iruña with a corridor. The ticket price would be around EUR 25 from one capital to another and EUR 75 from a trip to Madrid. Besides being elitist, it would have no advantage over the bus, which is much cheaper and only takes a few more minutes to make the same journey. Its connection with Europe is a fundamental objective, but at the moment it has no date.

The APR had a budget of EUR 10 billion in the Basque Country: 6 billion of the so-called “Y vasca”, 3 150 million of the Navarro corridor and another 1 billion sections of Lapurdi. It is estimated that EUR 4 billion remains to be put in the public coffers of Euskadi. So, why cook to carry out an anti-social project that harms the environment and the economy? There can only be one reason: the political interest of those who have never wanted to discuss the project, for its imposition on other social, popular and political groups, especially those of the Abertzale left, and on ETA’s vision. It would now be to paralyse this project, to give practical reason to the “extremists”. And you can't accept that. They will do so at any price, yes, with public money, although one of these experts says that the “helicopter service” would be more profitable than the “Basque Y”. That is hard for the members of the institutions that are stubborn!