Raül Blanco resigns as president of Renfe for personal reasons

The president of Renfe, Raül Blanco, announced this Tuesday that he will leave his position in the public company for personal reasons, as La Vanguardia has reported. The decision, by mutual agreement with the Ministry of Transportation, will become effective on January 14.

Blanco joined the public operator in February 2023 and has not reached two years in the presidency, in a period marked by technical problems and breakdowns, the complicated financial situation of the company and the liberalization process of this sector. .

El Economista points out that the manager has indicated in a brief statement that he has allowed Renfe to be “on the path to have positive results from 2025” and assures that the public company is already prepared “to be one of the large global Spanish companies.” in the field of mobility.”

The Catalan manager came to the public company after the then Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, decided to dismiss Blanco’s predecessor in the presidency, Isaías Táboas, due to the delays accumulated in the design and manufacture of metric gauge trains ordered to the Basque CAF for the Cercanías networks of Asturias and Cantabria.

It was the famous scandal of the trains that supposedly could not fit through the tunnels, although in reality the convoys had not gone beyond the design phase. The case also claimed the position of the until then Secretary of State for Transport, Isabel Pardo de Vera.

With the decision to resign as president of Renfe, Blanco is going to leave the public sphere to dedicate himself to the private sector, after a period in which, before piloting Renfe, he was general secretary of Industry and Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). ) in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

In the two years since its incorporation in February 2023, the accounts of the public company have gone from losses of 123.4 million euros in 2023 to ‘red numbers’ of 20 million euros in 2024, which represents a reduction in losses of 83%. At the same time, the gross operating result (Ebitda) has increased by 28% compared to the previous year.

In this last year, the modernization of the company has also been completed with the change of management teams, with the arrival of independent and equal professional profiles to the group’s boards of directors, and with the improvement of transparency standards and ‘ compliance’ within the company.