The Government remains in defense of the new garbage rate that city councils will have to create at the latest in April 2025 to charge in full to citizens the cost of collect, transport and treat organic waste. Despite the frontal opposition of the PP mayorsof the doubts that its application also provokes among PSOE councilors and that the European Commission has pointed out that it does not It’s the only way available to the Government to reduce waste generation, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Moránhas placed this new municipal tax within “normality” and has defended it as a more “transparent” instrument than “dilute it” in the IBI as many city councils do and, ultimately, as something that recognizes “the neighbor’s right” to know what he pays and for what.
“Outside of Spain and inside, they are many town councils that have incorporated this mechanism in its collection base through fiscal ordinances of the most absolute normality,” said Morán in an appearance at the Ecological Transition commission of Congress, where he defended the rate that will be mandatory in all cities starting next year. , also based on his own experience as mayor of Lena (Asturias) for 12 years. As he explained, it existed before his mandate and measures were created to encourage or discourage the treatment or generation of waste from this rate. “Every citizen knew that the cost of collection and treatment was what it was and was distributed among all the residents when paying the tax,” he said about a new tax that all mayors will have to create to pass on 100% of the cost to the neighbors of this waste management, without the capacity to allocate to cover it with other financial resources.
“It is true that others They chose to dilute the rate within the IBI. I think that does not help at all to move citizens, it is not transparent“added Morán, who emphasized that “the neighbor has the right to know what he pays, why he pays and what he pays is used for. Within this normality, this figure is established within the law,”
In this way, the Government has given this Thursday one more sign that it does not seem willing to reversejust like last month the president of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), María José García-Pelayoasked the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchezin a meeting in Moncloa, when he pointed out that they are studying “legal actions” against a rule that they consider attacks the fiscal autonomy of city councils, to which the law recognizes exclusive competence to set their own rates and taxes.
Suspension in Low Emission Zones
Morán insisted on the new garbage rate during an appearance in Congress to respond on behalf of the Government to different questions from the parliamentary groups. Another of them has dealt with the degree of compliance of one of the provisions of the Climate Change Law, which obliged cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to establish low emission zones (ZBE). His response has shown the rate of town councils that have done so it does not reach more than 16.5%, not only two years after the term expiredor what the law gave them for it, but also the extension ended months ago of a year and a half that was given to them in December 2022.
“As of today,” he said, of the 151 municipalities required by law to implement the ZBE, only 25 have it created and functioning. In others 116 “are in the approval phase” and “there are only 10 municipalities of those obliged to do so that for various reasons have not yet started the procedures.”
This enumeration shows the degree of failure by the central government to make effective the obligation to restrict areas to traffic in large cities. At first, the mayors They should have done it by “early 2023”. A few days before the start of that year, at the end of December 2022, the Government approved a 18 month extension in which the mayors would not be declared non-compliant if they at least started the procedures before June 2024. Well after that date, Morán indicated this Thursday that only 25 cities have ZBEs in operation.
The failure to comply with this aspect of the Climate Change Law has occurred over the years since the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, which did not establish a sanctioning regime for the non-compliant mayors, and after the Transport Mayor, who later warned them that they would have to return the European aid they received for this, which is now being considered used for other purposes so as not to have to return to Brussels.
Meanwhile, the creation of zones with traffic restrictions became an electoral weapon, with parties such as Vox and the PP defending not applying the law, reversing or modifying projects already approved to levels that were insufficient in the eyes of the Ministry. All this also came up against 2023 was an election year and that the PSOE did not insist on an issue for which, like those of other parties, its councilors did not show great enthusiasm either.
Despite this and without explaining how, Morán has launched a new notice. “Those who do not comply, transfer that will have to respond for non-compliance. It cannot be that a municipality ignores its obligations in defending the health of citizens and that, based on the responsibility of their city council, citizens are in better conditions than others when it comes to addressing future projects linked to health.
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