Thirteen “rebel” cities fail to implement their low-emission zones

The implementation of low-emission zones (LEZ) in Spain is a tortuous path. A year and a half after the legal obligation for 151 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to have one of these areas, the Ministry for Ecological Transition only has evidence that there are 24 in operation, more than a hundred are in the process, while 13 have not even started the process according to the official count. “They are rebellious cities that are delaying the application of the law as much as possible,” summarises Carmen Duce, coordinator of the campaign. Clean Cities. Teresa Ribera’s department has sent requests for information to the 127 cities and 11 islands that do not yet comply with the Climate Change Law. Meanwhile, Transport will require municipalities to have ZBE in force in 2025 if they want to maintain state aid to public transport.

Low-emission zones are areas, usually located in the centre of cities, where the most polluting vehicles are prohibited from driving or parking in order to improve air quality and the health of citizens. EL PAÍS has asked the 18 cities that had not started the process in the previous count – in September 2023 – and has found that five are already underway. These are Tres Cantos and Coslada (Madrid), San Cristóbal de La Laguna and Granadilla de Abona (Tenerife) and Cerdanyola (Barcelona). The other 13 cities have not yet reported any news to the ministry: Valdemoro, Arganda and Aranjuez (Madrid), Motril (Granada), Barakaldo (Bizkaia), Ferrol (A Coruña), San Lúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), Calvià (Mallorca), Orihuela (Alicante), Telde (Gran Canaria), Mijas (Málaga) and Arona (Tenerife).

These are the cases that have been delayed the most, as the procedures can take months or even years. The municipal authorities of Calvià, Mijas, Arona, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Barakaldo and Motril have begun to draw up plans for their future ZBE, but they are still at the beginning of the process. “We hope that by the end of next year we will have everything in place,” says Marco Cortés, a councillor from Motril. Domingo Galván, a councillor from La Laguna, comments that “work is being done to establish low-emission zones in three areas of the town to have them operational before the end of the year.” A spokesman for Barakaldo says that they are preparing both the Sustainable Mobility Plan and the future implementation of the ZBE, although there is still no date. In Valdemoro they say that they will start the ZBE, although they do not yet have a date. The other six towns have not responded to EL PAÍS.

Several environmental and health organisations – Ecologistas en Acción, Ecodes, ConBici, ISGlobal and Salud por derecho – have joined forces in the Clean Cities campaign to demand compliance with the law. “Mayors have known since 2021 that they had to implement a ZBE in their municipality. A year and a half later, only a few have complied. I think we can call the other cities rebels, because it seems that they are delaying the application of the law as much as possible,” says Carmen Duce, spokesperson for Clean Cities. “As if that were not enough, the mobility ordinances that we are seeing in the process are minimal and incapable of meeting the objective of reducing emissions,” she adds.

Duce points out that this issue “should be left out of the political battle”, because the ZBE serve “to improve the quality of air and the health of cities”. In this sense, he assumes that launching one of these areas is complex, especially for smaller municipalities, but highlights that there are three “lazy” councils with more than 100,000 inhabitants: Barakaldo, Telde and San Cristóbal de La Laguna. “These three cities must have the technical capacity to draw up this plan, otherwise they lack political will and would be neglecting their functions of protecting the health of their population”.

In this gloomy panorama there has been some good news: five Catalan towns have launched their new low-emission zones this July: Cerdanyola, Viladecans, Gavá, Sant Boi and El Prat, reports Luis Velasco from Barcelona. The municipalities have started with the information campaign of the restrictions and have sent the new regulations to the residents: vehicles without a sticker will not be able to circulate from Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., as is the case in the metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona. The municipalities will not impose economic sanctions until next September 1.

Non-compliant islands

The Ministry for Ecological Transition also notes that none of the 11 main Spanish islands have started their island low-emission zone, as they are required to do by law. This has not happened in the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera) or in the Canary Islands (El Hierro, La Gomera, La Palma, Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote). For this reason, Teresa Ribera’s department has sent a request for information to both the cities and the islands that do not have their LEZ in force so that they update the official information.

Meanwhile, the Ministries of Transport and Ecological Transition have begun a series of meetings to define in a coordinated manner what a “fake” low-emission zone is, that is, one that is implemented as a cosmetic measure and that does not reduce traffic or pollution in the municipality. Once these common criteria are established, it will be possible to sanction those localities that requested European funds to set up one of these restricted traffic areas and have not done so correctly, or even consider other measures.

The Ombudsman has also launched an investigation to request information from the cities that are lagging behind, although there are no conclusions yet. “The proceedings are still open and the technicians are still studying the documentation provided,” said a spokesperson for the organisation headed by Ángel Gabilondo. For their part, environmental organisations are considering filing lawsuits against the non-compliant towns, either for inaction or for fraud.

For its part, the Ministry of Transport will require from 2025 that municipalities have a low-emission zone in place if they want to access the state subsidies provided for public transport, As reported this Wednesday by Cadena SERIn order to access these subsidies, municipalities must have an activated Sustainable Mobility Plan, so what the socialist Executive is proposing is to include within the requirements of this plan the obligation of an operational ZBE. The measure would affect both the municipalities that request aid through a competitive call, as well as the Transport Authorities that do so via a nominative subsidy.

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