All eyes on Spanish rail freight with multimillion support scheme
The European Commission has approved a 285-million-euro scheme to facilitate the transition from road to rail freight transport in Spain.
The scheme will be financed through the Recovery and Resilience Facility and take the form of direct grants to companies involved in the Spanish rail transport sector. The scheme will be running until December 2025.
What does it entail?
The plan is to support two complementary projects. First, the construction, adaptation, or improvement of loading docks and rail freight terminals and their connection with the main national railway network. Second, the scheme aims to finance wagons’ acquisition or refurbishment for rail freight transport. The Commission highlighted that “the scheme is necessary and proportionate to promote the use of rail”.
The Commission concluded that the scheme aligns with the EU Green Deal and Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. In addition, it claimed that “the aid will have an ‘incentive effect’ as the beneficiaries would not carry out the investments in the absence of the public support.”
Not the first scheme for Spain
This scheme follows another aid plan the Commission announced for Spain four months ago. Specifically, the Commission allocated 120 million euros to compensate freight companies that embraced the transition from road to rail.
Also read:
Subsidies, however, shall not provide for cementing at infrastructure technicalities, now severely plaguing, as well clients, as Industry. (Simply, now low price devastatingly, has turned high cost.)
Shift shall be fair. (Service rendered, shall be equal or better, than at the existing alternative.)
For sake of environment, noise shall be reduced. Contemporarily, for sake of clients, risks shall be minimal, etc. (Broken rails shall not remain most frequent cause of high cost derailments, etc.)