Do not look for this connection from Ezkio or Altsasu, let alone crossing the Ebro River through Castejón. The connection, or rather the connections, between the Basque Y and the AVE of Navarre is already a reality. It is these links in the plural that should concern us and that we should overcome them, and not be distracting us more with the brochure of sanctions, intrigues and deceptions among pro-AAV politicians.

The AVE of the Basque Country already appeared in the Railway Transport Plan in the last century, almost in the 1990s. And a little later, the AVE of Navarre. We had to wait until 2006 to start the works in Arruatzu (Álava) and until 2011 in Castejón. Two projects, more than 40 years after their creation, share a long life of meaningless and endless works. The famous phrase of Eduardo Galeano here would receive a new formulation: the end of the work is on the horizon. It moves two steps forward, and the end moves two more steps away. The most important thing is to build.

The AVE of the Basque Country and Navarre was born without the necessary debate, on a subject as fundamental as facing mobility, as well as the use and model of the railway we needed. This debate did not take place and now, at this critical time of ecological and energy emergency, when decarbonisation is more urgent than ever, it has prevented us from having a social, public, sustainable and quality train. The Basque Country and the AVE of Navarre show a deep connection in this; its construction has been accompanied by the decapitalization of the suburban and medium-distance network: the closure of stops, the reduction of passenger services, the cessation of maintenance, privatization...

Two high-speed projects have a permanent and calm injection of money, which large construction companies quietly receive from public coffers. All these years, all the political parties have more or less happily accepted the budget headings and used European funds. It doesn’t matter if the cost of the investment is unrecoverable, or if the operating costs will ever be covered. The large companies involved in the works of the AVE, on both sides of Aralar, are the real sinks of social wealth that ends up in private hands, well doped by overcosts and speculative strategies. They have a promising future: The Basque Country can exceed 6.5 billion euros and 3.2 billion euros in Navarre.

And as if they were two drops of water, the Basque Country and the AVE of Navarre have the same character: they are absurd projects, they will only serve to carry people (and not goods), they are poorly planned, they do not have guaranteed connections, and they do not have very realistic economic calculations. All these reasons were reflected by the European Court of Auditors in its report in 2018 to denounce the waste of similar projects without Community added value. From the north, through Lapurdi, we have this Basque Y that can’t find a way out to the French State. And from the south, towards Burgos, only one of the six sections that would be needed is tendered. The same is true for the AVE of Navarre. We have an excellent asphalted track (under the asphalt there were fertile fields!) From Castejón to Tafalla, but it has no exit or project to Zaragoza. We only have bits of AAV scattered in the middle of nowhere. And yet, in parallel, we have the current line of the traditional railway that is being left to die. There is no greater nonsense! This line, integrated in the Cantabria-Mediterranean corridor, would allow, if properly renovated and strengthened, a cheaper service to people and goods, with less impact on the territory.

The AVE of the Basque Country and Navarre are not just infrastructures. They have a destructive nature in common. Some political representatives consider it essential to save 25 minutes from Ezkio or to arrive in Madrid half an hour earlier. But under the shadow of these magnificent and undeniable goals, so far twelve workers have died in the construction of these two works, and they will not be able to get anywhere, and their families and friends will lack minutes to measure their pain. Is there any work in the Basque Country that has caused so much death? But at the same time, using these projects, viaducts, tunnels, slopes, quarries, landfills, high-voltage lines, barriers, enormous energy consumption, occupation of land of agricultural and environmental value, etc., scratching, fragmenting, impoverishing, depopulating the territory, etc. They're on their way.

In these times of ecological and social emergency, in the opposite of popular interests, we find two projects closely linked to economic and political interests. To make progress, in recent times, especially in Navarre, two projects surrounded by poisonings, lies, manipulations and bullets of criminalization. They try to convince us that there is no turning back for the AVE, that it is a lost battle, that nothing can be done. It is the language of imposition and of completed acts. Other times, the forms are more pleasant, as in the case of the Etxabaco station, so essential for the AVE. Without noise, a quiet change is promoted to accept construction in an uncritical way, despite the fact that it goes hand in hand with urban speculation. These two projects are advancing, denying social participation, ignoring the sentiment and conviction of broad sections of the population who question them for going against society, ecology, the economy and being unsustainable.

For this reason, in the face of the perverse connection of those who deny the debate about the mobility model (also about the railway model), who put their yearning for business above everything, a constant social mobilization is needed. To do this, those of us who question the model of hypermobility and speed that has been sold to us by the main parties and the economic and business powers must connect. We don’t want AAV, neither from Ezkio, nor from Altsasu, nor from the Ebro. The interest of those of us who live and work in Navarre is to connect with the surrounding territories, improve the existing road network, while reducing the needs of private mobility and polluting. Today, the Social, Public and Quality Train is the only correct, reasonable, sustainable and viable alternative.

Mikel Saralegi Otsakar and Jule Goñi Montero, members of the Real Estate Foundation