Transport commissions Ineco to study tolls on highways to apply them from 2024

The Government has already begun the procedures to study the different possibilities aimed at introducing a new toll system on all highways in the country from 2024as promised to Brussels in exchange for receiving European funds valued at 70,000 million euros, according to Europa Press.

Spain reopens the debate on road tolls in a Europe without a unified model to approach

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The General Directorate of Roads, dependent on the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, has commissioned the public consultant Ineco to prepare nine reports to assess a new road financing systemaccording to the documentation published in the contracting portal.

The cost of these services will amount to 1.4 million euros and the established term will be 10 months. Ineco has already contracted the services of KPMG Abogados for 89,000 euros to carry out the legal advice and consultancy service specializing in fiscal and tax matters in the field of roads, as part of this contract.

Last June, the minister of the branch, Raquel Sánchez, ruled out initiating the corresponding debate with the sector to begin designing this plan, with the aim of giving priority to the economic situation, weighed down both by the pandemic and by the war in Ukraine.

However, he reconfirmed that this measure will be applied and advanced that a previous study was already being carried out. In fact, aside from the debate that must be opened with the sector to agree on the best possible system, the plans to implement payment for use on the roads continued.

In this way, on June 10, the internal contract between the General Directorate of Roads and Ineco was formalized, and on August 10, this company awarded the consulting services to KPMG. All the documents point to the year 2024 as the year from which the tolls would be implemented, if this measure goes ahead.

In line with the EU

The Government defends that this plan responds to the specific recommendations made to Spain within the framework of the European Semester 2019-2020 and to the alignment with the strategic agendas of the European Union, in whose majority of countries (Italy, France or Portugal, for example) Tolls are applied across the board.

These contracts open the first of the three phases in which this measure will be articulated. The second will be the design and engineering of the adopted solution and the third will be made up of the necessary support services for the tender for the implementation of the new collection system.

One of the first elements that will be analyzed in these reports will be whether to adopt a system of vignettes, with which a fixed amount is paid per year to be able to circulate, or tolls, which will depend on the distance traveled at each moment.

The scope of the road network to be priced will also be studied, whether it is only the state highways or also the regional ones (so as not to create territorial grievances) or even any road, as well as the possible fiscal progressiveness so as not to harm the most vulnerable.