De Operación Chamartín a Madrid Nuevo Norte

Ten years ago, my book on the first two decades of this story, "Operación Chamartín. Historia de una realidad virtual", was summarised on the back cover with these words: In 1993, RENFE awarded, in an ominous public tender, "the right to acquire" land that had been expropriated for the construction of Chamartín station and its accesses. The land had a building capacity of 187,358 m2 and was awarded to DUCH, S.A. to build a new neighbourhood designed by Ricardo Bofill. Today, twenty years later, DUCH, S.A., 72.5% owned by BBVA, has the "right to acquire" 1,855,521 m2 of urban development, ten times more than when it was awarded, but although the media have repeatedly reported that "Operación Chamartín is starting up", DUCH, S.A. has not paid a single euro to RENFE, has not moved a handful of earth and has not laid a single brick on the land of the virtual Operación Chamartín. Meanwhile, the Public Administration has modified and extended the contract with DUCH, S.A. several times without new public tenders, has re-qualified the land three times, has made three laws, two regional and one national, to favour the winning bidder, and has ignored on three occasions legal reports proposing the termination of the contract to DUCH, S.A. for breach of contract. The validity of the same, now ten years later, saves any additions, except the logical updating of the alias of BBVA, which is now no longer DUCH, S.A. but CMNN, S.A., a slight correction in the buildable area to be enjoyed, an increase in the number of contract modifications, favourable laws and land requalifications and that, today, it is not twenty, but thirty years later. As for the rest, everything remains the same. Just like the first day.