“With European funds, [the work] can be done. We believe it is necessary and timely and the Andalusian government will put a lot of pressure on the Spanish government to make this work happen”.

The leader of the Regional Government of Andalusia stressed that, in the strategic plans for transport and communications worked together with the central government, the railway connection with Faro, via Huelva, was placed “as a priority”.

This project, noted the Andalusian government official, would allow “to generate synergies” to “potentiate EuroAAA as one of the great tourist destinations in the world, especially in southern Europe”.

“Very positive”

Juan Manuel Moreno, who in his speech had already considered that the path towards the completion, in the medium and long term, of the Faro-Seville rail link is “irrevocable”, stressed that there is “a very positive attitude” in Madrid about the work, “which has to be translated, on paper, into a viable project, with deadlines and investments”.

At the 2020 Portuguese-Spanish summit in Guarda, the discussion on extending the high-speed train to the Algarve was left out of the common cross-border development strategy, despite Portuguese pressure to the contrary.