The state’s million-dollar investments in Madrid do not stop Ayuso’s victimhood

Isabel Díaz Ayuso has ended the year as it began: confronting the Government of Pedro Sánchez. In her 2024 balance sheet, the president assured that the Community of Madrid is experiencing its best moment, thanks to “a job well done by citizens, companies and the administration.” Furthermore, he encouraged a recurring fact in his speeches: “Madrid is the most supportive region in Spain, 80% of our revenue goes directly to the General State Administration.” However, Ayuso had no words of gratitude for the economic investments of the central Executive. On the contrary, he accused the president of “strangling” the region.

There was also no praise for Sánchez or his team when the Minister of Education, Emilio Viciana, signed the María Goyri agreement, by which Madrid will receive 169 million euros from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities to hire a thousand doctoral assistant professors in the universities in the region. Viciana described the agreement that he had just ratified as “an imposition,” “a cacicada” and “blackmail.” And he added: “It is a ‘Pedro Sánchez invites and the autonomous communities pay’.”

The Community of Madrid threatened to be the only region that distanced itself from this agreement. Finally, despite his complaints and criticism of the central government, he ended up giving in. The story of his opposition was difficult to sustain before public opinion, especially when the rectors of public universities accused Ayuso of suffocating them financially.

Morant took advantage of this act to vindicate the investment that the State makes in the Community of Madrid, where a large part of the state research organizations“the Government of Pedro Sánchez has invested around 1,100 million euros per year on average in R&D since 2018, almost double what the Community of Madrid invests from its budget,” said the Minister of Science on last Friday.

Also present at that same event was the Minister of Digital Transformation and Public Function and general secretary of the PSOE of Madrid, Óscar López, who regretted that Ayuso allocates the resources of Madrid residents to “reduce taxes on the rich and give tax gifts.” In social matters, there is also co-financing from the State, which allocated almost 400 million euros to the Autonomy and Dependency Care System, according to the latest data updated in October by Imserso.

The Sánchez Government has also invested in the region’s infrastructure. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda announced in May that it would offer the Madrid City Council up to 154 million euros to finance the second burial of the A-5 highway, one of the major works of the Government of José Luis Martínez Almeida. The amount contributed by the central government will represent 25% of the total cost of the project. This construction occurs within the framework of Operation Camp, where there is a state investment that amounts to 1,000 million euros. This urban redesign involves the construction of 10,700 homes on former military land that had been abandoned for more than two decades.

This Monday, the Government delegate in the Community of Madrid, Francisco Martín, took stock of the central Executive’s investments in the region. In his speech he assured that, in the last six years, since Pedro Sánchez has been president, the autonomy has received a state investment of 36.2 billion more “than in the last six years of the Mariano Rajoy Government.”

Among the milestones mentioned by Martín, he highlights the 7,380 million funds from the Recovery Plan that have been allocated to Madrid since 2021. According to the central government’s calculations, this injection has benefited around 149,000 Madrid residents. Another investment highlighted by the delegate is the 1,426 million euros allocated since 2018 to housing policies.

The central government also participates in the Cañada Real Relocation Plan, contributing 110 million euros, the same amount disbursed by the Community of Madrid, as well as the two town councils involved in this strategy, Rivas-Vaciamadrid and the capital. This strategy aims to ensure that in ten years, more than 1,600 families residing in this settlement can access public housing.

For its part, the Ministry of Transportation is working to improve the Atocha and Chamartín stations. In the first, the central government has announced the investment of 22 million euros to “increase the capacity and reorganize the tracks of the Cercanías station.” For the second, they are working on a complete remodeling of the interchange and the high-speed, conventional network and suburban roads. They estimate that the investment in this project may exceed 540 million euros.

Commuter Plan

The operation of the Cercanías has been another of the flags raised by Ayuso against the central government. Emulating his president, the Minister of Transportation, Jorge Rodrigo, assured that the minister of the sector, Óscar Puente, “has reached his greatest degree of incompetence.” “He is clumsy in his management and I think that in the case of Cercanías, we Madrid residents have to see how that rail service does not work,” he added.

As in other autonomies, Cercanías trains have become a headache for users who depend on them daily to travel in the region. As elDiario.es revealed, in the last five years, between 2019 and 2023, not a single day has been recorded without incidents on this network. The problem has worsened in recent years. In 2012 there were around 14,000 trains that either were delayed or never ran. On the other hand, in 2023, the figure rose to 46,000 wagons with delays or outright cancellations.

With the aim of trying to alleviate this problem, the central government announced in mid-2024 that it had executed 850 million within the Madrid Commuter Plan. Among the notable actions include the construction of the new Parla Norte station, the renewal of the track in the section between Fuencarral and Tres Cantos and the expansion of the network to Soto del Real.