The Government aspires to replicate in Renfe the model of Aena, a public company that has become the first airport manager in the world and is the sixth largest listed on the Ibex 35. Its intention is to place the railway manager at the top of the table, although ministry sources specified that neither a partial privatization nor its listing on the stock market is on the table.
The ambition was shared this Thursday by the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, during a “New Economy Forum” meeting where he described Aena, the mirror for Renfe, as a “pride of the Ministry.”
He explained that the company has a value of 31,000 million euros and operates in 87 airports, many of them outside Spain. “We are going to set ourselves the challenge of making Renfe an Aena in a short time,” he said, in statements collected by Europa Press.
In recent years, the Government has expanded Renfe’s international presence, which now goes beyond the so-called ‘AVE to Mecca’, after buying stakes in Czech and Italian operators, participating in Mexican and American railway projects and entering France.
Regarding this last country, where Renfe hoped to reach Paris before the last Olympic Games last summer, Puente has stated that he does not believe that he will even arrive this year, due to the obstacles in France to his entry.
Renfe is already preparing a legal document to denounce these obstacles to Brussels, while the minister asks for “co-responsibility, loyalty and reciprocity” from France, after Spain has already opened competition to French and Italian operators, and which has meant that the high speed has gone from generating a profit of 115 million euros for Renfe before liberalization to joint losses of 230 million annually for Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo.
New president of Renfe
To direct this new stage of Renfe, Puente has defended that a transport manager is needed, which has led to the resignation of the current president of Renfe, Raül Blanco, with effect next Tuesday, when the current general secretary is expected to be appointed. of Sustainable Mobility, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, as new president.
Puente refused to confirm the appointment, although he has defended that he is “the best expert in passenger management in this country”, after having been managing director of the Madrid Municipal Transport Company (EMT) -when Manuela Carmena was mayor- and of Urban Buses of Valladolid (Auvasa) between 2019 and 2023, when Puente was mayor of that city.
“I am surprised that someone has analyzed that Fernández Heredia is related to me, since he is not even a member of the Socialist Party. Of course we do not share militancy,” he noted. The possible future president of Renfe was a councilor for Más Madrid in the Madrid City Council just before entering the Ministry.
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