EU Advances Transport Integration: Lisbon–Madrid High-Speed Rail to Be Cut to 3 Hours by 2034

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 29, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed building a "true European transport union" at the opening event of "Connecting Europe Days 2026" in Brussels, with a focus on advancing the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) and eliminating cross-border bottlenecks among member states in rail, road, waterway, port and transport hub connections. The European Commission cited the Lisbon–Madrid transport link as one of the cases of inadequate network connectivity.

Lisbon and Madrid are currently about 600 kilometers apart, and the two capitals are connected by about 40 flights per day, but there is still no direct rail service. Under the existing railway construction arrangements, by 2030 passengers are expected to be able to travel directly between the two cities by rail in about 5 hours; as the high-speed rail connection continues to improve, the travel time is planned to be further shortened to about 3 hours by 2034.

The Lisbon–Madrid corridor also involves the interconnection between the Iberian Peninsula railway network and the European standard gauge system. The agenda of the European Commission meeting on September 29 specifically included a special session on "migration to a unified European railway gauge," with participation from Portugal, Spain, Finland, the Baltic countries, as well as Ukraine, Moldova and other countries involved in gauge conversion. The discussion covered TEN-T compliance requirements, financing instruments and implementation paths for standard gauge conversion.

The EU is using TEN-T to promote the formation of cross-border continuous corridors from the existing national transport networks of member states, with construction covering railways, roads, inland waterway shipping and infrastructure connecting ports and transport hubs. Connecting Europe Days 2026 will also discuss topics such as cross-border rail capacity, grid-style transport infrastructure financing, ports, multimodal transport and military mobility, with the event running until October 1.

The EU estimates that completing the trans-European transport network will generate significant investment and transport efficiency gains for the European economy. The core engineering objective corresponding to the Lisbon–Madrid case is to gradually form a direct rail connection between the two capitals through subsequent high-speed rail construction and to shorten cross-border passenger travel time.