Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat have expressly requested the Ministry of Public Works resumes work at La Sagrera and the tendering of the Sant Andreu Comtal station. At the meeting, the decision was taken to set up a work group which will meet once a month to monitor the process.

The project being carried out by the company Barcelona Sagrera Alta Velocitat (BSAV) is currently paralysed due to supposed irregularities by contractors, with discrepancies between work which companies declared as completed and work which had actually been done. The Secretary of State for Infrastructures, Julio Gómez-Pomar, confirmed the current situation, recognising that work came to a standstill at the start of 2014. The Mayor, Ada Colau, on behalf of City Council, and the Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, Josep Rull, criticised the fact that it wasn’t until the meeting with the managing board of BSAV that the situation was communicated to them for the first time, when the situation has been known for the last two years.

The Mayor insisted that this lack of information should be solved, because “the situation at La Sagrera is tragic and is a huge open wound for city residents and neighbourhoods in the surrounding area”. Colau remarked on the cordial tone of the meeting, but was firm on the intention of the state: “I’d like to have faith in the timetable we’ve been told, but the level of commitment is the same as it was ten months ago, when we met with Minister Pastor. We’ll believe it when we see it”.

One of the main agreements at the meeting was the commitment from the three administrations to set up a work group, which will meet once a month to monitor the situation and thus avoid the unilateralism and paralysis of the last few years. City Council also offered a framework agreement as a way of committing to carrying out everything it is responsible for, such as protected housing in the area, bike lanes and so forth. The Mayor noted that “in order to speak about a final calendar, the project must be re-defined, must be in line with the city and its surroundings and must be agreed with the participation of everyone”. The state also committed to complete work on the paving foundations within a year.

