The Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, has participated in the extraordinary videoconference of the Council of Transport Ministers of the European Union in which she has shown Spain’s commitment to maintaining a coordinated European response to the war in Ukraine, also in the field of transport.
During her speech, Raquel Sánchez underlined the importance of transport as a fundamental element of support, at a European level, in the face of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and exposed the responsibility that they have, as ministers of the branch, to mitigate the serious consequences that it is having on this sector, especially in the increase in costs due to fuel prices.
In this sense, the minister has highlighted the Spanish National Plan for response to the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine , which includes specific measures for transport such as, in the case of land transport, the reduction of 20 cents per litre of the price of fuel and direct aid to companies for more than 450 million euro and lines of credit to ensure their liquidity.
The head of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda has also presented the measures that our country has taken in the maritime field to help those directly affected by the war. Among them, she mentioned the extension of temporary work contracts and temporary residence and work authorisations, to protect Ukrainian crew members on Spanish ships, and discounts to the ship rate and the merchandise rate on the lines between the peninsula and our extra-peninsular ports, to reinforce the resilience of the sector.
European coordination of aid to Ukrainian refugees
In her address to her European counterparts, Raquel Sánchez recalled that European coordination in air transport has guaranteed the safety of civil aviation, successfully achieving the transfer of refugees.
The minister also referred to rail transport, which is facilitating humanitarian passenger corridors for which Spain has already offered more than 28,000 free tickets and has deployed social and medical assistance and support devices at railway terminals. Likewise, she has mentioned the active Spanish participation in the development of solidary railway freight corridors.
Spain has also designated a specific unit to optimise the coordination between the arrival of refugees at the transport terminals and their introduction into the national reception system, through the designation of several main humanitarian ‘hubs’.
Finally, the head of the Department has conveyed the importance of improving European coordination, in such a way that the information on the various restrictions that are established on Russian persons and entities is centralised, accurate and easily accessible.
