20 ()
The president of Renfe, Isaías Táboas, and the Secretary of State for Transport, Isabel Pardo de Vera, have submitted their resignations to the Minister of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, who has accepted them, as confirmed to Europa Press in sources close to the Ministry, due to the controversy over the Cantabria and Asturias trains.
The minister has transferred to both her appreciation and gratitude for the work carried out in their respective positions. From Transport they defend that this relief “will allow the implementation of a change with which the Ministry wants to start a new stage both in the Secretary of State and in the railway operator.”
These resignations have been given barely an hour before the minister meets with the presidents of Cantabria and Asturias, Miguel Ángel Revilla and Adrián Barbón, to give explanations about the problem that occurred regarding the dimensions and design of the Cercanías trains for these two communities. These communities have also been demanding dismissals, compensation and speeding up the deadlines for their arrival. The meeting will be held, starting at 4:30 p.m., at the headquarters of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, in Madrid.
Apart from the dismissals, both Revilla and Barbón have already advanced that in this meeting they will ask for free Cercanías in their respective communities as compensation for the “botch” of the trains and they will demand more units without this implying delays in the current contract and will advocate that it be carried out with a separate contract.
At the beginning of February, Adif and Renfe, both public companies dependent on the Ministry of Raquel Sánchez, already dismissed two senior positions: Adif, the head of its Inspection and Technology department; and Renfe, to the person in charge of Material Management in the Technical and Operations Department.
TABOO EXPERIENCE
The Chairman of Renfe has a degree in History and has obtained postgraduate diplomas in Management Function in Public Administration at Esade and in Marketing Management at EADA. He has developed his professional career between the Public Administration and the private sector.
In the public sector, he was Secretary of State for Transport (2010-2011), Secretary General of the Presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2006-2010) and Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of Industry (2004-2006).
Previously, he was director of Communication and Institutional Relations at Renfe and delegate for Heritage and Urbanism in Catalonia and Aragon (1991-1996).
In the private sphere, he has been linked to the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya as director of Editorial UOC and Eureca Media SL (1996-2004) and as director of Projects (2012-2013).
vera brown
For her part, Pardo de Vera is a Civil Engineer from the University of A Coruña (July 2001). After working in the private engineering and consulting sector for railway and road infrastructure projects, she joined Adif through the Public Employment Offer in 2007.
From that moment until 2015, she held successive positions of construction management, head of infrastructure and area manager in the construction of the Madrid-Galicia high-speed line. At the end of that year, she requested a leave of absence from Adif and was appointed director of Mobility and Infrastructures of the Diputación de Pontevedra.
In June 2016, she rejoined the railway entity as number two of the entity, making the position of General Director of Exploitation and Construction of Adif compatible with that of General Director of Adif Alta Velocidad, positions she has held until June 2018 when she was appointed president of both public entities, a responsibility that she has been carrying out ever since.
