The First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, announced this Thursday that the Government will approve “shortly” a legal modification so that the railway accident in Adamuz has “the same consideration as a work accident”. The minister advanced this measure during her intervention in Los Desayunos, organized by RTVE and Agencia EFE.
The change is not just symbolic. According to Montero, this new classification will allow that those affected by the incident access superior protection to the current one. Specifically, it will entail “higher benefits for the injured” and also permanent disability, widowhood, and orphanhood pensions of a greater amount for the victims and their families.
The key to the announcement is that the Government wants to equate by law this railway accident with the cases that, for the purposes of social protection, are treated as a work accident. That is, Montero did not speak of an isolated extraordinary aid, but of a regulatory reform so that the Adamuz disaster is covered by the same protection framework as a work accident.
The measure announced by Montero comes after the Government had already approved compensation for the families and the injured of the accident. In that package, the Executive set a total aid of 216,000 euros for each deceased and established variable indemnities for the injured depending on the severity of the sequelae.
With this new step, the Executive intends to go beyond those initial compensations and reinforce the structural coverage of the victims through a specific legal modification. The phrase used by Montero was explicit: “I can tell you that we will soon approve a legal modification so that the Adamuz accident has the same consideration as a work accident.”
