Latest negotiations on financing in Nouvelle-Aquitaine
In the pipeline for 30 years, the Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed line is on the right track. Everything is in order to launch the project, with a few details. In New Aquitaine, the last local authorities, not all favorable, vote this week on the financing of the project. Enough to fuel final negotiations.
Monday, it will be up to the region to deliberate in plenary session, before the agglomeration community of Dax on Tuesday, the Pyrenees-Atlantiques council and the agglomeration community of Agen on Thursday, then the Basque Country agglomeration community on Saturday. Recognizing “concerns” and “dead ends” to complete the financing, the PS president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine Alain Rousset called on Friday, in front of the press, “to solidarity and responsibility”. “You can’t have a historic chance and at the same time procrastinate, it’s a question of responsibility,” he said.
Travel Toulouse-Paris in three hours
Same appeal from Geneviève Darrieussecq, regional councilor and member of the government, evoking a “historic moment” for the region. Because time is running out. The ordinance which will make it possible to create the finance company must be priced by April 2022, after a passage before the Council of State. The financing plan should be finalized by the end of the year. Mentioned since 1991 but remained in the works for a long time, this Great South-West Project (GPSO) was resuscitated with the arrival of Jean Castex in Matignon, to the great joy of the Occitanie Region, which again called for “solidarity” on Friday. territorial ”.
As an extension of the Paris-Bordeaux LGV, it provides for the creation of two new lines, to Toulouse and Dax. The first will save an hour of travel, putting the 4th largest city in France three hours from Paris in 2030, and 20 minutes for Dax. The site, estimated at 14 billion euros, will be financed up to 40% by the State, which will release 4.1 billion for the Bordeaux-Toulouse line but has not yet committed to Bordeaux-Dax.
The reluctant neo-Aquitaine departments
The communities – regions, departments and agglomerations of Occitanie and New Aquitaine – should share the financing of 40%, the remaining 20% being supplemented by European funds. In total, more than 1.7 billion euros must be provisioned solely because of the neo-Aquitaine communities.
If in Occitania, the gambles were quickly made, it is not the case in Nouvelle-Aquitaine where some of them have triggered brakes so far of the four irons. Because of the four departments concerned, Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Landes, only the latter did not hesitate to put his hand in his pocket. Lot-et-Garonne and Gironde have both said no “to any” financial participation, preferring to focus their efforts on “daily trains”. The Gironde has thus voted a “competition fund for the development of local rail lines” of 170 million euros in order to “stimulate the start-up” of a “metropolitan” RER with Bordeaux Métropole.
The RER option in Bordeaux
For its part, the metropolis of Bordeaux has validated its participation of 354 million euros, but by “pointing” towards the development of 12 km of lines south of Bordeaux, hoping to create this local RER thanks to the new LGV lines. . Very hostile to this new LGV for the protection of the environment, the ecologists, through the voice of the EELV mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic, denounced a “senseless” and “anachronistic” project. But for some elected officials, it is the too salty slate that makes people creak. “Communities are negotiating for a million while we are talking about an infrastructure that will last 200 years,” storms a source familiar with the matter.
President Alain Rousset took out the calculator: “out of the 14 billion, there is an estimated deadlock of 150 million euros”. Nothing “insurmountable”, he says, warning that the Region does not play firefighter. Until the last moment, the phones will heat up behind the scenes, and negotiations are going well.