Spain railway petition filed with European Parliament

A petition has been submitted to the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions regarding the long-term closure of the Plasencia-Astorga railway line in Spain. The 327-kilometer stretch, which once connected Seville to Gijón, has seen no passenger service since 1985 and no freight traffic since 1996.

The petition alleges that the Spanish government has systematically violated EU treaties by failing to correct regional inequalities. It specifically criticizes the decision to request that the Plasencia-Salamanca-León section be removed from the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), which would disqualify the route from significant European funding. The petitioner argues that the lack of infrastructure is a political choice rather than a demographic inevitability, affecting four autonomous communities and seven provinces.