Motorway tolls will increase by 5% in France if a tax on motorway concessions foreseen in the 2024 budget draft is applied, declares Vinci, who threatens legal action to win his case. Vinci, on the other hand, suggests that the State co-finance a road decarbonization plan.
Raising taxes on highways is a “misconception,” Pierre Coppey, Vinci deputy CEO and president of Vinci Autoroutes, said Monday during a press presentation.
“This is inevitably about less investment at a time when a lot needs to be done and also about an inevitable increase in prices, which today we estimate at around 5% taking into account a 4.6% tax on the volume of highway businesses,” he said. declared during the Vinci Autoroutes Media Days.
“Therefore, it is a bad idea for us to oppose it and we will do so by all means if the Government does not resign or if Parliament persists in voting in favor of this project,” he warned.
Vinci intends to take over several jurisdictions
“This will come down to administrative justice, constitutional justice and, where appropriate, European justice, but perhaps we will find a solution first,” he continued.
According to him, “it would be preferable to mobilize all mobility actors in a decarbonization project” of roads. “They’re ready for it, that’s my call.”
The tax on “long-distance transport infrastructure” decided by Bercy in the name of the ecological transition should provide 600 million euros per year from 2024, of which three quarters of the revenue would come from the roads and transport sector. a quarter of the air, according to the Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire.
Regarding the decarbonization of roads, Pierre Coppey pointed out numerous needs: multiplication of electric charging points, development of shared modes of transport (carpooling and development of buses) and production of renewable energy along the roads.
Electric charging stations, which today number 3,000 in the network of concessioned highways (of which Vinci represents 51%), will have to increase to 25,000 throughout the network by 2035, he stated. This is an investment of 5 billion euros. He also estimated the need for 12,000 truck charging stations.
Finally, he pointed out that “about 200 photovoltaic parks should see the light” along the roads, which would represent 1 gigawatt of power, “the equivalent of a nuclear reactor.”
Source: BFM TV
