The Valencia City Council and the Generalitat, both institutions governed by the PP, have once again blocked this Thursday the appointment of the Government delegate, the socialist Pilar Bernabé, as a director of the public company Parque Central de Valencia, which has been carrying out the undergrounding of the railway in the capital and the development of one of the most important urban projects in the capital for decades.
The public company had called a meeting to appoint Bernabé as a director of Adif, but the item did not go ahead because the City Council and the Generalitat have asked the Secretary of State for Transport to convene an extraordinary board meeting and a general shareholders’ meeting to approve the appointment of the entity’s new manager and its accounts, as reported by the council in a statement.
The current manager, Salvador Martínez Císcar, retires in July and it will be necessary to appoint a substitute that Mayor María José Catalá and the Minister of Environment, Vicente Martínez Mus, want to agree with the State before allowing the entry of Pilar Bernabé, general secretary of the socialists in Valencia and virtual candidate for mayor of Valencia for the PSPV-PSOE.
It is not the first time that the regional and local administrations have opposed Bernabé’s designation. It already happened on February 5, when these same institutions vetoed her, alleging that no one had informed them of the items on the agenda. The meeting was then postponed until the three administrations could reach a consensus and discuss this point.
Four months later, the mayor participated telematically this Thursday in the meeting of the general shareholders’ meeting of the entity, whose agenda only included the dismissal of the director proposed by RENFE-Operadora and the appointment of the proposal from Adif and Adif Alta Velocidad, Pilar Bernabé, as reported by the City Council.
María José Catalá reported that the board had left out “the most important matters for the Parque Central company, such as the approval of the accounts that must be approved before June 30, as well as the appointment of the company’s new manager.”
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For this reason, she has asked the Ministry to convene a board meeting and an extraordinary meeting before June 30 “to address these crucial matters.”
Catalá also informed the Secretary of State for Transport, José Antonio Santano, that “there will be no problem in giving the green light to the approval of the new director proposed by Adif, provided that the appointment of the company’s future manager is agreed upon,” according to the same sources.
The PSPV-PSOE have again spoken of a “veto” against the Government delegate. This was expressed by both the socialist spokesperson in Les Corts, José Muñoz, and the socialist councilor in the Valencia capital’s council, Elisa Valía, in separate statements.
The latter referred to a “new veto imposed by -the mayor of Valencia- María José Catalá (PP) and criticized that the mayor “is using a key entity for the urban development” of the city “as an instrument of political confrontation, putting strategic projects at risk.”
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