“It is not considered appropriate to promote an agreement under the proposed terms.” With that phrase, the Government of Catalonia responds to Madrid’s offer for all regions to commit to “financial co-responsibility” and thus avoid imposing on their citizens the new requirement of being registered in the capital region to access their transport card. The Government of Salvador Illa (PSC) believes that extending this condition throughout Spain would “further fragment” access to the system and would not solve “any” of its problems. Additionally, Galicia demands reciprocity in the measure. That is, that Madrid co-finance the use that Madrid students make of the Galician transport system. Ceuta, the Canary Islands, the Valencian Community, Cantabria, Castilla y León, and Extremadura have shown interest in signing these co-financing agreements, according to a Madrid government spokesperson. Castilla-La Mancha already has a similar agreement. The new requirement came into effect in June and affects 200,000 people.
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“It is not considered appropriate to promote an agreement under the proposed terms,” they explain at the Generalitat of Catalonia, without going into the substance of the matter, which is Madrid’s request that the Generalitat pay for Catalans who use Madrid transport to bypass the requirement to be registered in the capital region. “In an increasingly interconnected society, habitual travel does not always coincide with the municipality or autonomous community of residence,” they opine, focusing on the new registration requirement. “Thousands of people travel daily for work, academic, family, or personal reasons, and public transport is an essential tool to guarantee such mobility,” they recall. And they conclude: “From this perspective, the place of registration is not generally considered a determining factor for access to the ordinary system tickets.” In any case, according to Generalitat sources, they prefer not to give more detailed explanations “because it would be playing Ayuso’s game.”
Ayuso’s demand has also not been entirely well received by the Xunta de Galicia. In a different tone, the Galician PP leader, Alfonso Rueda, also expressed his surprise at the measure announced by his party colleague.
“I was a bit surprised because I consider Madrid an open community,” Rueda said when the controversy broke out. The president of the Galician Government will analyze the proposed agreement and agrees to sit down to negotiate, but, “in case of reaching an agreement,” he warned, “the condition of reciprocity will be non-negotiable.” Rueda thus referred to the discounts and advantages Galicia has in the transport system and from which Madrid citizens also benefit.
In the Basque Country, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Sustainable Mobility says that “to date no decision has been made,” reports Mikel Ormazabal. The Government of Aragon, through the Directorate General of Transport, has requested the proposal be sent in more detail, reports Eva Pérez. The Balearic Government states it will study the proposal and try to advance this initiative, reports Lucía Bohórquez. And in Andalusia, they have not yet responded to Madrid, reports Eva Saiz.
Everything happens this way. The managing director of the Regional Transport Consortium, Pablo Rodríguez Sardinero, sent a letter in mid-June to his counterparts across Spain encouraging them to sign agreements based “on the principle of cooperation and financial co-responsibility between administrations.”
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As EL PAÍS reported, Madrid intends for the other regions to co-finance the rectification of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s Executive, which in just 72 hours went from requiring all users to meet the registration requirement to proposing these co-payment agreements. If implemented, foreign students and immigrants will be the main ones affected by the new rule, whose compliance in the capital depends on overcoming the collapse of the appointment system to register at the Madrid City Council. The alternative is to manage it online, although many are unaware of this option, and those living in sublet rooms may face the difficulty that the rental contract explicitly states that only the agreement holders can register at the residence.
Rodríguez’s communication emphasized that it is a “priority” that young people from other provinces can continue to benefit from public transport discounts under the same conditions as before. It even proposed sending interested parties a draft agreement that includes the necessary legal, economic, and operational aspects to proceed with its formalization.
To get here, Madrid has decided to apply a 2011 rule. That is, it took 15 years to activate it. The excuse for this delay is multiple, according to a government spokesperson: “The progressive implementation of the contactless card, technological limitations and system integration, the COVID-19 pandemic, and demand disruption.” However, the activation of the registration condition comes less than a year before the 2027 municipal and regional elections, and just as Vox promotes a “national priority” project that it is trying to impose in its negotiations to form coalition regional governments with the PP.
What is certain is that since June 15, no one can get or renew a transport card in Madrid without being registered, except for minor exceptions such as large families or residents in specific municipalities of Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León.
The model Madrid wants the other regions to follow is precisely its agreements with these two communities. Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León have calculated, respectively, 39.4 between 2026 and 2030, so that students and workers from certain municipalities benefit from discounts on Madrid transport. Madrid, for its part, also makes million-euro contributions as a result of both agreements, which specify that payments are first budgeted and then made only based on trips taken. It is expected that administrations wishing to do so will take months to sign these agreements.
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