The Spanish Government maintains confidence that it will not have to pay for the use of roads and highways in 2024. The acting Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, assured yesterday that she is “optimistic” that the European Commission accept other options and alternatives proposed so as not to have to introduce tolls starting next year.
“We already said that the Government's will is not to apply any pay-per-use system on highways,” the minister reiterated in a statement to the media. Sánchez stated that “a series of alternative proposals” had been presented to the Community Executive, such as the reinforcement “of rail transport and public transport.”
In his opinion, “the conditions that existed at the time the measure was proposed are not met today. We know that the Commission is analyzing it, we know that we can share that criterion. And this shared vision allows us to be optimistic,” he stressed.
Sánchez also spoke about the issue in the parliamentary commission, to questions from Ciudadanos MEP José Ramón Bauzá, and indicated that the reintroduction of tolls “has never been said to be a European demand.” He recalled that although the Government introduced pay-per-use in the Spanish recovery plan, then “ambitious measures regarding the objective of road decarbonization had not yet been approved”, in reference to the European climate law, known as Fitfor55, and that aims to reduce polluting emissions by at least 55% between now and 2030.
Likewise, the minister stressed that the Government is negotiating with the Commission "within the framework of the addendum to the recovery plan" that it presented in June. “We are advancing other proposals that can allow us to achieve the same goal without applying pay-as-you-go,” she added.
The commitment to reintroduce tolls is included in the recovery plan with the objective that "it will begin to operate from 2024, in accordance with the 'polluter pays' principle." It is at milestone number 3 and is linked to the payment of the sixth tranche of the recovery fund, for which Spain would receive 8,000 million. Last June, the Government sent its addendum to eliminate the possibility of payment on the road and is now waiting for Brussels to announce its evaluation and whether it approves the alternative measures.
The issue of paying tolls muddied the electoral campaign when the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, asked the president, Pedro Sánchez, if he was going to charge for the highways. Shortly after, the president of the General Directorate of Traffic, Pere Navarro, assured that it should be paid "as imposed by Brussels", and then rectify the refusal by the Government.
