The Executive proposes to the concessionaires a maximum increase of 4% instead of an increase linked to the average inflation of the year as indicated by the regulations
With just over a week to go until the end of the year, the Government is analyzing measures against the clock to soften the historic rise in toll motorways of 8.4% as of January 1. The contracts establish a rise linked to the 12-month CPI, which given the high inflation this year would lead to an unprecedented rise in toll roads.
Industry sources assure this newspaper that the Executive is considering a 4% increase, although the Ministry of Transport has not yet confirmed this percentage. This rise would mean the biggest rise in the last thirteen years but would cut the expected increase in half if no action were taken.
The companies that operate the highways claimed that the increase was 8.4%, according to twelve-month inflation as of November 30, so now the Government will have to find the formula to compensate for this loss of income. The Ministry of Transport continues in negotiations with the concessionaires of the payment routes to establish both the final percentage increase and the compensation mechanisms.
Ministry sources indicate that they have been analyzing “different alternatives” to define the final increase in tolls taking into account the “complicated international moment of high energy prices.” Thus, they remember that this crisis mainly affects mobility and the Executive has the “vocation to face the inflationary spiral.”
Everything indicates that the final proposal will be approved on December 29 at the last Council of Ministers of the year, in which the Government is expected to detail the list of measures with which it will face the crisis derived from the war in Ukraine. in 2023.
If the cap is finally set at 4%, it will be the first time that the Government has not applied the revaluation of tolls according to the CPI since this system was approved in 2002. The highest rise in recent years occurred in 2007, when, according to the average inflation of 2006, tolls rose by 4.5%.
Far below have been the increases in recent years, with 1.97% in 2022, 0.11% in 2021, 0.84% in 2020 or 1.2% in 2019.
broken highways
The toll roads that will not go up will be those rescued by the State. The Government announced this Tuesday that it will manage at least until December 2032, ten more years, the broken highways after the 2008 crisis by renewing the operating agreements for the nine highways that were saved in 2017. And these rates will be frozen again in 2023 .
From the Executive they argue that the decision has been made after in 2021 these highways obtained a net profit of 1.2 million euros compared to losses of 6 million the previous year. They are financed by collecting tolls from users (radial 2, 3, 4 and 5, M-12, AP-41, AP-36 and the AP-7 Circunvalación de Alicante and Cartagena-Vera) and capital contributions of the Ministry of Transport.
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