“The preliminary studies showed that the investment in the project was not financially viable. The studies also showed that the Lisbon-Madrid line, the first that was going to be built, was also financially unviable”, according to the audit disclosed today about the project that was started in 1988 and cancelled in 2012.


The investment was to be implemented using a model “unlike any other in the world”, based on sic Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) that would cost the public partners about €11.6 billion.


“The demand risks were left to train operator CP and infrastructure manager REFER, economically challenged state owned enterprises while the payment to the concessionaires for the infrastructure availability were stable, a characteristic of rents”, the court report warned.