Lisbon-Madrid high-speed rail link to be completed by end of 2023 – minister

  • Lusa
  • 26 January 2021

"We plan, by the end of December 2023, to have a high-speed connection between Lisbon and Madrid," announced Pedro Nuno Santos, the Portuguese infrastructure and housing minister.

The government announced on Tuesday the construction of a high-speed rail link between Lisbon and Madrid, which will be completed by December 2023, with the aim of “connecting the country” and not just the Portuguese and Spanish capitals.

” We plan, by the end of December 2023, to have a high-speed connection between Lisbon and Madrid,” said Pedro Nuno Santos, the Portuguese infrastructure and housing minister, speaking at a hearing by videoconference in the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee.

Responding to MEPs’ questions about the railways, he said that “the Lisbon-Madrid link was not the only priority of the Portuguese government.”

He added that “we must never forget that when we are making new high-speed lines, alongside the new connection between the capitals, we must also connect our territory”.

And, for this reason, “the link between Lisbon and Porto is a priority for the Portuguese government and for Portugal”.

The project for the Lisbon-Madrid high-speed line, which provides for a maximum speed of 350 kilometres/hour, has been under discussion for several years and was suspended in 2011 due to the economic crisis of the time.

Pedro Nuno Santos spoke at this long-distance hearing to present the priorities of the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union, in which he pointed out that “rail transport is also suffering the consequences of the pandemic”.

Therefore, “we must support it as quickly as we did the air sector,” Pedro Nuno Santos stressed, minutes after defending state aid to TAP because it is the country’s flagship airline.