2023-09-21 08:26:15
The Government, with its boss, Pedro Sánchez, at the helm, trusts that Brussels will free it from applying a measure that has always been unpopular, and even more so now in the current situation of sustained inflation: tolls on high-capacity roads.
The Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma), Raquel Sánchez, has reiterated today, as she did yesterday in Brussels, that she trusts that the European Commission will agree to withdraw the introduction of tolls on motorways in 2024 from the Spanish recovery plan and has repeated that “the Government’s will is not to apply any payment system for the use of highways.”
During the last electoral campaign prior to the general elections held in July, the PP warned that its implementation would be a reality in 2024 because the Executive promised so in the Recovery Plan that it sent to the European Commission to become a creditor of the Next Funds. Generation. However, Sánchez himself denied this – he stated that it was “a hoax” from the right -, while Mitma stated that there was no specific date for its implementation, something that Brussels refuted shortly after. The Commission confirmed in July that the measure appeared in the Spanish recovery plan, which was approved by both Brussels and the Member States and was linked, specifically, to the disbursement of the fifth tranche, which amounts to more than 8 billion euros. Specifically, it appears within milestone number 3, according to which Spain must create “a payment mechanism for the use of State roads, which will begin to operate from 2024, in accordance with the ‘polluter pays’ principle.”
Optimism
After the Brussels declaration, the Executive itself implicitly admitted that tolls starting in 2024 were part of the Recovery Plan sent to the Commission by introducing in its addendum that the withdrawal of tolls is now being negotiated. An addendum that the Commission’s legal services continue to analyze despite the fact that the deadline to do so expired on September 6.
As Minister Sánchez explained, the Government has presented to the European Commission a series of “alternative proposals” that seek to “reinforce” other measures that have already been applied and among which it has highlighted efforts to encourage rail transport or public transport. public. “We know that the Commission is analyzing it and that we can share that criterion, that analysis and that shared vision that allows us to be optimistic,” she added.
Yesterday, Brussels published a report on the progress of the recovery fund in all the countries of the bloc and highlighted that Spain has requested to modify a series of milestones and objectives because there are “objective circumstances” that prevent it from undertaking them, although without identifying which ones. If the European Commission approves the revised recovery plan, Spain will have access to another €84 billion in credits and €10 billion in new transfers that will be added to the €70 billion already available.
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