The expansion of the El Prat airport, a route plagued by turbulence

The announced investment of 1,700 million euros has flown from the Barcelona-El Prat airport.

In an emergency summoned appearance this Wednesday, the Minister of Transport and Mobility, Raquel Sánchez, confirmed the stoppage of the plan.

"It is impossible to bring such a large project to fruition without clear and seamless support from the Generalitat," he criticized.

"The pact has been broken due to a manifest loss of confidence," Sánchez acknowledged.

In the council of ministers the sudden misgivings of members of the Government have caused discomfort, "the declarations of the

president

of the Generalitat have surprised us ”, explained the minister, and worse has made the announcement that several councilors planned to attend the demonstration against the expansion of the airport, which is called for next day 19.

More information

• The Government halts the investment of 1,700 million to expand the Barcelona airport

• The City Council of El Prat requires Aragonès that Aena avoid building on the protected area of ​​La Ricarda

• Aragonès hangs out of the plan to expand El Prat in a protected area

The seams are tight

. Barcelona airport registered in 2019, the last year before the pandemic, a traffic of 52.6 million passengers. The infrastructure has its capacity cap set at 55 million and, despite the air slowdown caused by the outbreak of the virus, Aena calculates that the activity will rise and that the saturation of the facility will arrive in 2026. The plan of Aena, a company in which the company has a stake in 51% by the State, pursues a comprehensive expansion of the airport, with an investment of 1,700 million euros and the construction of a new satellite terminal in T1. The work is subject to the extension of one of the three tracks, a performance that is considered essential to decongest the volume of operations.

Lengthen the sea track

. The debate around enlargement centers on the intervention on the airfield. Extending one of the tracks, the one closest to the sea, implies invading the natural strip of the Llobregat delta. Neighborhood associations, environmental groups and several city councils of municipalities near the airport have always distrusted any action that involves more air traffic, due to the acoustic impact that this entails on the environment. The El Prat control tower orders landings and take-offs with routes that take the planes away from the roofs of the houses, but which limits the rate of operations per hour.

Segregated tracks

.

The agreement presented on August 2 between the State and the Generalitat shielded the role of segregated runway operations, one for landing and the other for taking off.

A forecast that dampens the acoustic impact and that was vital to achieve the complicity of the neighboring municipalities of Castelldefels and Gavà, both governed by the PSC.

The Minister of Transport Raquel Sánchez, a key player in the negotiation for the airport, was the mayor of Gavà until two months ago.

To the south of the airport is the Gavà Mar urbanization, an area of ​​exclusive villas.

The neighborhood has been very vindictive when it comes to protesting the noises of the planes.

The Llobregat delta

. Without the possibility of extending the tracks to the south (Gavà Mar), Aena has argued that the only alternative was to grow towards the Llobregat delta. This implies affecting land in the municipality of El Prat, where Lluís Mijoler, from Catalunya en Comú, the party of the mayor Ada Colau and Catalan reference of Podemos, governs. The council has led the opposition to airport growth, stating that the European Commission would never give the go-ahead to a work that would affect areas protected by the Natura 2000 Network, particularly the one known as La Ricarda. The mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau aligned herself with the thesis against the expansion of the infrastructure.

La Ricarda

. La Ricarda lagoon, a wetland of high ecological value and where birds nest, has become the main point of friction between supporters and opponents of the enlargement of the aerodrome. The Generalitat has turned the initial approval of the work into a frontal rejection. Minister Raquel Sánchez and Aena affirm that stretching the track to the east was always one of the bases of the negotiation, because there is no possible alternative.

Quarrels between Junts and ERC

. Raquel Sánchez pointed out that the Generalitat has shown that it does not have "a mature position" on the expansion of the infrastructure. The

vice president

and head of the Ministry of Territory, Jordi Puigneró, showed his "discomfort and anger", upon learning of the loss of the investment. He criticized "the confusion generated by some in Catalonia." Within the Government, Junts had become a defender of the expansion project, while Esquerra and President Pere Aragonès were more lukewarm and closer to the critical positions of Comunes and the CUP.

Positions found in the Government

. The Ministry of Transport, now headed by Minister Raquel Sánchez, has been the main supporter of the El Prat expansion project. The entire socialist part of the Executive has aligned itself with it, but not that of Podemos, which has openly shown its opposition to the project. Vice President Yolanda Díaz publicly congratulated herself on Wednesday: "It is great news that the natural area of ​​La Ricarda is preserved intact and the expansion of El Prat is reconsidered in the midst of a climate emergency," she said on social networks.

No intercontinental hub

. During the entire negotiation process, the State, Generalitat and Aena seemed to agree on one point: the development of an intercontinental hub at Barcelona airport. Now, once the expansion is blocked, the facility loses integers to seduce airlines that are looking for bases of operations to link their flights between Europe, America and Asia.