Spain’s two main political parties are at loggerheads as to who is to blame for the tragedy last month in which 43 people were killed when an underground train derailed on the Valencian metro network.

The PP have claimed that the accident was neither preventable nor forseeable and therefore no one individual can be held responsible for the accident. They have ruled out the possibility that the accident could have been caused by a technical failure and that Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGV), the company in charge of maintaining the metro system, had fulfilled all its health and safety requirements prior to the accident.

However the socialist coalition in the Valencian Autonomous government, consisting of the PSPV-PSOE parties, don’t agree. They have announced that they will be asking the Valencian courts to investigate whether the Head of transport can be held accountable given that this person is in charge of managing the metro network. They claim that the most important part of a democratic system is that people must be held accountable and in the case of the Valencian underground accident the management of the service failed.

However, both parties agree that the most probable cause of the derailment was excess speed.