New contract with the State

Following the nationalisation of 79.6% by the Spanish state a year earlier, the rules of the game are beginning to change. The first step was to agree a new Contract with the State, which replaced the previous one. Signed just before Christmas, on 21 December, by the Minister of Finance, Javier Benjumea, and the company's president, José Navarro-Reverter, it brought some changes: • Increase of the state participation fee from 10% to 15% (the amount to be collected was considered as a tax payment) • Disappearance of the gold redemption clause (replacing it with an indemnity) • Possibility of termination for serious non-compliance In addition, a new penalty regime was included, which could lead to the seizure of the service and required the definition of a minimum programme of work to be carried out over the next ten years. This deadline included a number of obligations, including the extension of the automatic service to 23 new towns.

17 July, new law and pay rise

On the one hand, the Law of 17 July 1946 brings a novelty, which is the authorisation of the sale of shares by the State, which gave a free hand to "pass on to the private economy the package of shares of the CNTE that the State owns today under conditions that allow it to compensate itself for the acquisition price". And on the same date, 17 July, the employees received the news, no doubt with great joy, from the Directorate General of Labour, which gave its approval to the new basic salaries for CTNE staff, with an increase of 52% for the most modest category and 39% for the rest.

London, within reach

In the meantime, the network continued to grow and reach further and further afield. In 1946, direct radiotelephone communication between Madrid and London was inaugurated, although initially on a very limited schedule. And a new circuit began to be deployed between Madrid and New York, the technical and quality characteristics of which "are the last word in this type of installation", according to the documentation of the time.