Traffic acknowledges that in 2024 there will be tolls on the highways and the Government denies it: this would affect Asturias

2023-07-14 04:15:00

The introduction of tolls on Spanish highways, an issue that has been floating in ambiguity for more than two years, yesterday caused several declarative turns that culminated in a sudden stop. The General Director of Traffic, Pere Navarro, assured in the morning that Spain would begin charging for the use of these roads in 2024 “by imposition of Brussels.” After a few hours, the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) itself and the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez“categorically” denied that intention that the President of the Government himself, Pedro Sanchezhad explicitly denied in the televised debate that he held last Monday with the PP candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo

The application of tolls in the state network of highways and dual carriageways is a condition required by the European Commission to transfer subsidies worth 70,000 million euros for the maintenance of the tracks. After more than two years of comings and goings and imprecise statements by different members of the Government, Navarro was emphatic yesterday when asked about it on a program on Catalan television TV3. “What I can tell you is that next year we will have to put tolls, Brussels demands it from us,” he assured.

According to Navarro, this issue “is a great issue for an agreement between the two major parties, to prevent it from entering the electoral debate, which in the end we all lose.” The head of the DGT insisted that it is a regulation dictated by Europe: “Brussels imposes on us, demands of us, to put tolls; it tells us: ‘The money that we are sending you is not for upkeep and maintenance of roads, it is for other things, so you have to put tolls as a requirement if you want to receive more money.

These words caused quite a stir in the media as they occurred only three days after Pedro Sánchez denied charging on the highways during his face-to-face with Feijóo.

In mid-afternoon yesterday, hours after Navarro’s statements, the DGT itself and the Ministry of Transport denied the leader almost at the same time. “In relation to the statements made this morning on TV3 by the director, comment that he deeply regrets the confusion generated on a matter on which he does not have any type of direct information or powers attributed to be able to pronounce,” said Tráfico in a statement to the press.

For its part, the department led by Raquel Sánchez stated the following: “I want to categorically deny that the Government is thinking of imposing tolls for the use of highways.” The minister took the opportunity to attack the “hypocrisy” of the PP, “which was the one who commissioned studies to implement payment for uses from the year 2021.”

In Asturias, the measure would affect the highways managed by the State Administration: to the “Y”, to the section of the La Plata highway (A-66) between Oviedo and Campomanes, to the Cantábrico highway (A-8), to the Oviedo-La Espina section (A-63) and to the Oviedo-Villaviciosa (A-64).

the rates

One of the questions about these hypothetical tolls is their amount. The construction company employers, Seopan, made a proposal in 2021 for a rate of 3 cents per kilometer for passenger cars and 14 cents for heavy vehicles, with the introduction of hourly bonuses.

If this scale is applied, the three cents per kilometer they would imply payments of 0.9 euros for routes such as Oviedo-Gijón and Pola de Lena-Oviedo; 1.8 euros for Ribadesella-Pola de Serum; 1.9 euros for Avilés-Luarca and 7 euros for traveling from the border with Cantabria to the border with Galicia.

In the region, organizations such as the Asturian Construction Confederation (CAC-Asprocon) were in favor of applying tolls to ensure that funds are obtained for infrastructure maintenance.