European corridors

The government appointed a commissioner for the Mediterranean Corridor to coordinate the follow-up of the works that are carried out on this line.

The Mediterranean Corridor office has designed a tool that allows you to consult all the progress and ongoing projects.

The Atlantic Corridor is one of the major strategic axes within the European Union's Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and one of the main commitments for strengthening the connection between European countries. This corridor traversing Spain is a multimodal network connecting the country with Europe, integrating rail, road, port, airport, and logistics infrastructure to support efficient, sustainable, and competitive mobility.

But the Atlantic Corridor is much more than simply a set of infrastructure. It is a national project that contributes to territorial cohesion and economic development. Between now and 2030, the planned actions in Spain cover more than 5,400 kilometers of railway network, 2,880 kilometers of roads and 78 kilometers of inland waterways, connecting 9 ports, 5 airports, 9 freight terminals and 30 key urban nodes. Overall, the Corridor links 13 autonomous communities and 40 provinces, representing more than 65% of the population and more than 66% of the national GDP, building bridges between people, businesses and territories.

To promote and coordinate this strategic project, José Antonio Sebastián was appointed as Government Commissioner for the Atlantic Corridor in Spain in 2023. One year later, in 2024, the Technical Support Office for the Commissioner was established, designed as a one-stop service to support the development of the Corridor, facilitate coordination between administrations, advance decisively in the implementation of infrastructure essential for Spain’s future in Europe, and encourage an increasing volume of goods to be transported by rail along the Atlantic Corridor.

The EU has a management tool to enhance the competitiveness of rail transport compared to other modes of transportation: Rail Freight Corridors, specific freight corridors. There are currently eleven. 

The RFCs partially coincide with the CNC Corridors, and their purpose is to facilitate common governance of these routes so that through a One-Stop Shop the railway companies can request a train route from one end of the Corridor to the other, without having to negotiate with each country through which it passes.

Of these, two pass through Spain and involve the participation of Adif. They are, on the one hand, the Atlantic rail freight corridor (formerly known as rail freight corridor no. 4), and the Mediterranean rail freight corridor (formerly known as rail freight corridor no. 6).

Both corridors now have an operational One-Stop Shop. The one for the Atlantic Corridor is in Madrid, and the one for the Mediterranean Corridor is in Milan (Italy). The aim is to deal with, process and coordinate the international freight path requests that these corridors will manage.

Adif, together with seven other partners from five countries, forms part of the Corridor: Spain (Adif), France (SNCF Réseau), Italy (RFI), Slovenia (ASZ), Hungary (MAV), Croatia (HZ Infrastruktura), the Figueras-Perpignan line, and Hungary’s capacity allocator (VPE). The Mediterranean Corridor's One-Stop Shop is located in Milan, Italy.

The Mediterranean Rail Freight Corridor, which connects at different points to 6 other European freight corridors (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7), runs along more than 7,000 kilometers of the route:

• Almería–Valencia / Algeciras / Madrid–Zaragoza / Barcelona–Marseille–Lyon–Turin–Milan–Verona–Padua / Venice–Trieste / Koper–Ljubljana / Rijeka–Zagreb–Budapest–Záhony (Ukraine–Hungary border)

Adif and the infrastructure managers of Portugal (IP), France (SNCF Réseau) and Germany (DB Netz AG) make up this corridor whose One-Stop Shop is located in Madrid.

A proposal for the revision of Regulation 1315/2013 on the development of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) is currently being processed within the European Commission (EC).

According to the proposed text, the European Corridors (CNC) would be integrated along with the Rail Freight Corridors (RFC), with both concepts encompassed —if the current proposal is approved— within the so-called European Transport Corridors (ETC).

The following link to the European Commission website includes the proposal for the new regulation.