After train accident in Spain: Spanish Transport Minister resigns

“A transport minister cannot remain in office after two such serious accidents,” Óscar Puente told the Spanish Parliament’s standing committee. After three years in the cabinet, he announced his resignation. It is a question of political dignity, coherence and compassion for the victims, he added. He has two high-speed train accidents in just one year. One in January left 46 dead and the one a week ago left 69 dead.

Puente does what he has done for all these years: he answers questions from the people's representatives for four hours, as he has done to the press over the years. He is firmly convinced that a minister cannot hide. This is unusual in Spain.

The fact that Puente is now taking his hat off and not, as he repeatedly emphasized before, staying in place “out of responsibility” is also due to the elections in less than a month. His resignation is intended to protect Prime Minister and leading candidate Pedro Sánchez. Another of the principles that Puente repeatedly cited was that the political project took precedence over his person.

The father of three children, born in 1968, comes from the central Spanish provincial capital of Valladolid. Puente was a lawyer and actor before entering local politics. He was mayor of his hometown for eight years before he was voted out of the city administration in 2023 despite another election victory by an alliance of the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and the right-wing extremist Vox. Sánchez then offered him a ministry for the third time. Unlike the times before, Puente now agreed.

He presented himself with a skilful parliamentary appearance. “From winner to winner,” he addressed PP leader Alberto Nuñez Feijóo when he complained that his PP had won the most votes but was still unable to govern.

It's just one of many performances that some people love Puente for and others hate. With his quick wit, he skilfully used social networks to demonstrate Spain's rights. He thus made himself an object of hatred among PP, Vox and the press close to them.

Puente took on a difficult task as transport minister. During the years of the euro crisis, the railway system was run ailing by the conservatives in power at the time. And due to liberalization – which Puente repeatedly criticized – the system is overloaded. The socialists increased government spending again, but this could not make up for everything, as the two accidents show.

Paradoxically, Puente had to admit that he had not invested enough, even though the Spanish state railway company Renfe signed a billion-euro train purchase agreement just the day before the last serious accident. And when Puente asked parliament to approve higher new debt for the state railway, the very people who are now accusing him of underfinancing voted against it: PP, Vox and the Catalan Junts.

“Not all politicians are the same,” emphasized Puente on Wednesday. Anyone who wants to understand understands. The outgoing minister was referring to the Conservatives because they did not make any statements after a serious plane accident in the army, after a train accident or after the floods in Valencia with over 200 deaths. There were no resignations. They hid.