Viana do Castelo, Portugal, Sept. 3, 2024 (Lusa) - The president of the Atlantic Axis, Luís Nobre, said on Tuesday that he had asked the governments of Portugal and Spain to include the new international railway bridge over the River Minho in the agenda for the next Iberian Summit, which is scheduled for the autumn.

In a statement, the president of Eixo Atlântico, who is also the mayor of Viana do Castelo, said that the petition, sent to Portugal's minister of foreign affairs and Spain's minister of foreign affairs and transport, was "positively received".

The new bridge over the River Minho that will serve the Minho Line will be built to the east of Valença and Tui. Still, the exact location has yet to be determined, says the Atlantic Axis, adding that, "likewise, the last administrative procedures and the last engineering and information studies for the sections on both sides, between Porriño and Frontera, on the Galician side, and between Ponte de Lima and Frontera, on the Portuguese side, have yet to be finalised".

Luís Nobre recalls that a decade ago "the Eixo Atlântico proposed the construction of a new high-speed line between Ferrol (Galicia) and Lisbon, which would have a station at Francisco Sá Carneiro airport".

"This petition was first organised in 2016 at a meeting between municipalities and businesspeople at Europarque in Santa Maria da Feira. Subsequently, at the Eixo Atlântico General Assembly held in Maia in 2018, the proposal that the new line should have a station at Francisco Sá Carneiro airport was passed on to António Costa's government through the Minister for the Environment, Matos Fernandes," the note adds.

According to the Eixo Atlântico, "this line would be the alternative to the Minho line, which, after its modernisation and electrification, an initiative led by the Eixo Atlântico, still had the “handicap” that journey times could only be improved to a limited extent due to the bottlenecks in Valença - Porto, most of which could not be resolved. At the same time, several meetings were held with Spanish government officials until the southern exit from Vigo was unblocked."

"This, which is history, is documented in the minutes of the Eixo Atlántico and the media catalogue, and it's important to know it at a time when the construction process has been unblocked and is progressing according to plan, both on the Portuguese and Spanish sides. This merit belongs exclusively to the municipalities (especially those of the Eixo Atlántico), civil society and the organisations that promote and defend the railway," he said.

ABC/ADB // ADB.

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