The AP-7 and AP-4, without toll since 2020 while defining the new model of the motorways

The AP-7 and AP-4, without toll since 2020 while defining the new model of the motorways

The Government raises the need for some payment mechanism for the entire network, but there is no parliamentary consensus and it has to decide on the concessions that expire

  The Government seems to walk between two waters regarding the future of the national system of toll motorways. And it is that although it made the first public concession of this type of roads recovered by the State free, and will do the same with two others at the expiration of its current contract, it is still unclear what model it would want in the medium term to finance all the net.

  In fact, in several forums with concessionaires and construction companies held in recent months, it has opened the door to the possibility of establishing payment mechanisms in all or part of it. It has been through the mouth of the Minister of Public Works, José Luis Ábalos, who criticizes that it is "the only transportation infrastructure that is intended to be free", when in the rest of them - ports, airports and railways - fees or royalties are paid . The annual cost of maintaining this network for the State that amounts to 11,000 million euros, a sum that the Executive sees no viable continue to pay without having new resources because its length (20,000 kilometers today) does not stop growing.

Although it has avoided opting for one option or another - "you have to choose one, whatever it is", he says - it is clear that there should be a single "egalitarian" system for all of Spain, that does not discriminate against some citizens (for a fee). ) versus others. A priori there would be three main options on the table: a hard and pure toll, which would be in principle permanent and with annual tariff revisions; one "soft" only for some groups, or one that was higher for them -for example, the truck drivers for the greater weight of their vehicles and the wear and tear that this causes in the asphalt-, although another option would be to be charged in the areas of greater congestion and in the hours where it was given; finally, there would be the payment in the "shadow", which is not charged directly to the user,

That model should be agreed upon in a subcommittee of Congress, but given the difficulty of reaching agreements in this legislature, the Government has preferred to make the routes whose concession is won free. It passed from December 1 with the AP-1 between Burgos and Armiñón (Álava), and will happen again from January 1, 2020 with the Tarragona-Alicante (AP-7) and Seville-Cádiz (AP-4) highways . The next three, including the Madrid-Zaragoza AP-2, will continue with their contracts until August 2021. Of course, the unions have warned that if the toll booths are eliminated, jobs will be lost, up to a thousand in the PA alone. -7 and AP-4; That is why they are calling on the Government to relocate these professionals to similar posts in other ways.

The bankrupt roads, waiting

In parallel, the State will maintain in its power the nine bankruptcy payment channels - this Friday took control of the last one, the Madrid-Toledo motorway, together with part of the ring road of the Castilian-Manchego capital, at least until 2022 In that period should have been resolved their bankruptcy proceedings and, a priori, be tendered again in a process where the previous Executive expected to get between 700 and 1,000 million euros, although precisely the interest of infrastructure concession companies in that process has been "relative", acknowledges the minister.

And is that as the government plan was to reduce tolls, and also lower the maximum period of concession, the business would give these highways would be clearly lower than expected. But neither the State can lower much more their economic demands, since that money would be used later to cover part of the patrimonial responsibility (RPA) that the Administration must assume to compensate the previous concessionaires for expropriating the toll roads. The Executive has not yet specified the amount that according to its calculations would pay, although Treasury estimated months ago that it would fall of 2,500 million euros compared to the more than 4,000 million demanded by companies.