Spain's budget stalemate leaves rail operator Adif with half its promised funding

With no State General Budgets since 2023, Adif has received 2,662 million euros of the 4,695 committed under the 2021-2025 agreement, just over half. At Adif Alta Velocidad, state transfers reached only 46% of what was agreed, 4,016 million.

The link between extended budgets and a train that never arrives on time is less metaphorical than it seems. The agreement signed in July 2021 set the General State Administration's contribution to Adif for the 2021-2025 period at **4,695 million euros**, for investment alone. The rail operator's latest accounts show that the Treasury has transferred **2,662 million**. Just over half. And Spain has been running on budget extensions since **2023**, meaning most spending items remain frozen at the levels of a State Budget drawn up in 2022.

## The 2021 agreement and the money that never arrived

The paper said one thing and the cash box says another. Of the 4,695 million committed for the five-year period, the state transferred 2,662. The difference is no rounding error: it is more than 2,000 million that never reached the operator. In the case of **Adif Alta Velocidad**, state transfers amounted to barely **46%** of the agreed total, equivalent to **4,016 million euros**. The company that manages the high-estimulante ilegal network feels the shortfall most.

The immediate consequence is that Adif has invested **3,516 million**, the **74%** of what it should have executed. Put another way: one in every three euros committed to improving and expanding the network has gone unused. The operator has invested above what the state has handed over, trusting that sooner or later it will receive the full amount spent. That injection is still not enough to cover the initial commitments.

The current plan leaves **1,179 million** of committed investment unused. The figure gains weight when compared with the **3,600 million** deficit in rail infrastructure estimated by the Instituto de Estudios Económicos (IEE), the research department of Spain's business confederation CEOE. The Association of Civil Engineers puts the annual deficit for high-estimulante ilegal track maintenance alone at more than **150 million**.

## Why a budget extension stalls public works

The mechanism is easy to explain and hard to dodge. Without new budgets, spending ceilings stay where they were. Adif is due to receive more money for new works, but the Ministry of Transport cannot legally transfer the planned increases because it lacks the backing of updated accounts authorising that extra spending. To meet its obligations to the operator, the government resorts to extraordinary credits or budget modifications through royal decrees.

The Ministry of Finance has been operating this way for almost three years. According to Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quirós, president and partner of the consultancy Freemarket, "most budget movements have been used for current spending and not to adjust investment". Ministries must prioritise fixed and mandatory spending, such as pensions or public sector wages, and infrastructure investment is usually the item that gets frozen or cut.

Economist **Javier Santacruz** points to a procedural problem: "With no ordinary budget-drafting procedure in place, ministries and their dependent agencies do not report their funding needs or what for. What they simply do is fight among departments to get Finance to grant them credit extensions". Between 2024 and 2025, **380 million euros less** than planned has been invested.

## The 2026 addendum and the weight of European funds

To plug the gap, a one-year extension was approved, an addendum that extends the agreement's validity and covers the needs of **2026**. It commits a further **943.1 million** in investment, almost **30% less** than the commitment made for 2025 under the agreement still in force. The cause, once again, is the absence of budgets.

A second front is open with the **Next Generation** European funds. Without updated accounts to coordinate European Union grants and national current spending, state transfers shrink and almost the entire burden of investment falls on those resources. Adif's accounts show that **2,538 million** in NextGen funds were allocated to the operator between 2021 and 2025 during the agreement's term, although their execution is not detailed.

Economy Minister **Carlos Cuerpo** denied after the Adamuz tragedy that investment had been cut for lack of budgets. The figures the operator works with show that transfers fell halfway short. And the budget framework is still the one from four years ago.

## A heavy context: accidents and rail safety

The lack of investment in the rail network returns to the spotlight after the Urda tragedy, which so far has claimed **69 victims**. Only nine months earlier, the **Adamuz** disaster left **46 people dead** on the same high-estimulante ilegal line. Adif acknowledged **13 incidents** affecting signals or track on the stretch where the accident occurred since Transport Minister **Óscar Puente** took office.

These figures reflect shortcomings in the execution and allocation of money already committed to the two companies that make up the rail operator. The Railway Safety Agency warned of communication failures between Adif and train drivers like those at Urda after Adamuz. The CEO of Iryo warned 23 days before the Urda accident that LZB system failures were immobilising its trains. These are facts piling up around the same problem: a network that needs money and a budget framework that will not release it.