2023-07-19 13:41:13
A few days ago a recurring controversy broke out again, especially in electoral periods: the imminent arrival of tolls on Spanish highways. The Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, wanted to end the matter – “the issue has been settled, there is no issue” – by assuring that the Government is not proposing the application of payment for use of the roads in 2024, but that the terms included in the Stability Plan sent to Brussels are being “renegotiated”.
In said plan, the Executive promised to establish a toll model that would help the sustainability and maintenance of the roads. The minister acknowledges that this idea was raised with the European Commission, but that the Government has ruled it out. “It is true that at first we were considering that option (of tolls), but we saw that it is unfeasible because there is no political consensus or conditions,” Sánchez said at an informative breakfast organized by the Executive Forum in Barcelona.
But since the commitment with Brussels has been made, they have to present some financing model to ensure the economic viability of the system. Sánchez explained that the Government will propose a system to the Commission “according to our commitment”, but indicated that “it is not yet defined” and recalled that “there is time to do it”.
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The minister stressed that the current model by which highway maintenance is charged to the General State Budget “does not make sense” and is different from that applied in many other European countries. In addition, she emphasized during her speech that with this issue there has always been “a lot of political opportunism” and that her government has released 1,000 kilometers of highways, which has meant savings of 1,400 million euros for drivers Spanish people.
The issue comes this time after the PP candidate for the presidency, Alberto Núñez-Feijóo, reminded President Pedro Sánchez of this commitment for 2024 during the face-to-face debate two weeks ago and that days later the Director General of Traffic (DGT), Pere Navarro, confirmed in an interview on TV3 that the feared tolls will arrive next year “by imposition of Brussels.” The controversy was served and, after the immediate media impact, the DGT was forced to come out in the RNE lamenting the confusion created and indicating that the department has no direct information or powers attributed to it.
The Recovery Plan established that “it is necessary to develop a pay-per-use system for the high-capacity road network that makes it possible to cover maintenance costs and integrate the negative externalities of road transport, as is the case with other infrastructures.” The objective is to narrow the hole that supposes maintaining the 26,466 kilometers of highways charged to the General State Budgets, of which some 12,000 km are of high capacity at a rate of more than 20,000 million euros per year.
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