The Minister of Transport clarifies that it will present its pay-per-use plan “in the coming months”, which would be activated in 2024
It is one of the major commitments made to the European Commission to receive recovery funds and, as pointed out by the Government, there is no going back, as has happened on other occasions with different executives. This Tuesday, the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, announced that they will present “in a few months” their proposal to implement tolls on the high-capacity roads of the State highway network from the year 2024.
Sánchez advanced that different studies and analyzes are already being carried out to determine which payment system will finally be implemented, although he clarified that it will be a “fair, rigorous and sustainable” pricing. The objective of this measure, which has already been implemented by 24 of the 27 countries of the European Union, according to the minister, is to obtain extra resources for the millionaire costs of road maintenance. It is a game that eats about 9,000 million euros from public accounts.
It was the predecessor of Minister Sánchez, the former head of Transportation José Luis Ábalos, who put this measure on the table months ago. Rather, this debate, which is now closer to materializing. It will be a system “that will be subject to debate and analysis by social, economic and transport sector agents.”
The minister has emphasized that the resulting system will seek not to generate territorial grievances, something that now happens because there are regions with tolls and others without them and even some more expensive than others. “We will seek political consensus to establish a system that is up to the task and for which the best option is already being analyzed,” Sánchez concluded, ensuring that the result will be presented in a few months.
Transport number two, Isabel Pardo de Vera, went a step further by stating that it is “imperative” to pay a fee for use on the highways. The Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Mobility and Urban Agenda, urged in this sense – within a forum on infrastructures held in Pontevedra – to “not postpone it any longer.”
Pardo de Vera argued that this “payment for use” will offer a solution to the “growing deficit” in road maintenance, thus allowing an extra and direct source of income to be obtained. In his opinion, the 1,400 million euros that the General State Budgets will allocate in 2022 for the maintenance of these infrastructures are “insufficient”, which is why he considers that Spain must take a “further step” towards the changes demanded by the European authorities . The measure is included in the recovery plan sent to Brussels.
A hybrid model
Not approving this rate, indicated Isabel Pardo de Vera, “detracts resources” for the maintenance of roads “to the detriment of those that should be destined to reinforce the assurance of health, education or justice.” This damage – he pointed out – is aggravated by the collection of “unbalanced” tolls in the territory, “generating deep gaps in opportunity.”
Pardo de Vera stressed that the model imposed in Europe “is a 60% user fee and 40% tolls”, so he asked if “anyone can understand” that Spanish truckers “pay to use the roads throughout Europe »And foreigners« use free »the state ones. In addition, he recalled that between 2018 and 2026, 1,244 kilometers of the motorway network have been released or will be released and “historical” discounts have been approved in those that continue with concessions due to decisions “that left us hostage to their management.”
For its part, the Royal Automobile Club of Spain yesterday insisted on its frontal opposition as a measure that “once again burdens drivers’ backs and pockets.” Above all, he added, because “it puts them in serious danger by forcing many of them to seek alternative and much more dangerous routes.”
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