Malaga and Cadiz political parties join forces to demand train line extension along the Costa del Sol

The provincial branches of the conservative Partido Popular (PP) in Malaga and Cadiz have sealed a strategic alliance to demand that the Socialist-led government extend the railway line from Fuengirola to Marbella and Estepona, which would also open the doors to its extension to the Campo de Gibraltar in Cadiz province.

This common front was agreed at a meeting in Algeciras, attended by the president of the PP in Malaga, Patricia Navarro, with her counterpart from Cadiz, Bruno García, and the mayor of Algeciras, José Ignacio Landaluce.

The three-way meeting resulted in the commitment of the PP in Malaga and Cadiz to promote initiatives to demand an infrastructure that is "clearly necessary to guarantee the development of one of the most thriving areas with the greatest growth projection in the country", according to the Malaga PP. In addition, the leaderships of both parties agreed in highlighting "the urgency" of calling on PM Pedro Sánchez to ensure that in the next national budget, which is in the drafting phase, sufficient funds are allocated "for the project to move forward and break the deadlock".

Secretary general of the Malaga PP José Ramón Carmona stressed that it is "key" to start planning the coastal train, an infrastructure that, in his opinion, "has been absent for five years from the list of priority projects of the government, despite the fact that the Partido Popular's ex-minister of Public Works, Íñigo de la Serna, left two alternative routes proposed in 2018, with progress made in the geotechnical studies and which provided the initial environmental document with a budget".

Carmona has maintained that now is the time to be "ambitious" and that the coastal train, which is "a priority" for Malaga and Cadiz, should not be postponed. For this reason, the PP in both provinces will take initiatives with this claim to city councils, the provincial authorities, the Andalusian parliament and the Congreso in Madrid so that calls for "this necessary infrastructure do not fall on deaf ears".

"We know that the PSOE is now more concerned with its internal affairs, but they must not forget that they must have the interests of the general public at heart. At the PP, as a party with a vocation for government and public service, we understand that it is our obligation to offer mobility solutions to both current and future residents, always from the technical rigour of the experts and hand in hand with the citizens," added the number two of the party in Malaga.

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José Ramón Carmona maintained that it is necessary to look for alternatives to the traffic problems on the Costa del Sol as far as Algeciras, where the absence of a railway alternative forces residents and visitors to use "the most expensive toll [per] kilometre in Spain".

He insisted on asking the government to temporarily suspend the toll on the AP-7 until the train from Malaga to Algeciras comes into operation and recalled that the government has committed to subsidise 75% of the Galician AP-9 and AP-53 motorways following the agreement between PSOE and BNG, which was an essential part in allowing Sánchez to be re-elected as prime minister.