Tolls will increase by 4.9% from January, the Minister of Infrastructure announced at the end of the Council of Ministers on Thursday, taking into account the solution that was possible and has now been approved as “balanced”.
“It was clear to us that an increase of 9.5% and 10.5% was unbearable, but there are also contracts and responsibilities and we tried to find a balanced solution that would allow a smaller increase,” said Minister Pedro Nuno Santos at the end of the meeting of the Council of Ministers.
For example, from January 1, 2023, tolls will increase by 4.9% in the amount borne by users. Above this amount, the government official specified, “2.8% will be the responsibility of the state and the rest, up to 9.5% or 10.5%, will be borne by the concessionaires”.
This solution comes from a “sharing of responsibilities” and prevents the price of tolls from the concession contracts from increasing by 9.5% and 10.5% in 2023, due to the current context of high inflation.
Since the compensation for the increase in 2023 is limited to 4.9%, the concessionaires are allowed to increase the discount value of the tolls resulting from the respective concession contracts by an additional 0.1% over the following four years.
“The next four years [as concessionárias] may make an additional increase of 0.1% over the update fee they would be entitled to under the application of their contracts. So another 0.1% over the next four years,” explains the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, emphasizing that this is “the formula in which concessionaires are partially compensated”.
“There are responsibilities that need to be shared and the concessionaires understand that there is a part to the community that should also be their responsibility,” the official stressed.
The solution now approved, said Pedro Nuno Santos, allows for sharing responsibilities between users, between the state and between concessionaires and “an increase in tolls by less than half of what the concessionaires had already asked to increase from 1 January”. .
The 4.9% increase that users will experience from January 1, 2023 is transversal to all tolls, according to Pedro Nuno Santos.
Pedro Nuno Santos stated that the state will spend about 140 million euros to limit user toll increases to 4.9% from January next year.
This cost of 140 million euros for the state, during the concession period, was conveyed by Pedro Nuno Santos at the press conference of the Council of Ministers, after announcing that tolls will increase by 4.9% at the expense of users, 2.8 % of the state’s responsibility, with the remainder, up to 9.5% or 10.5%, borne by the concessionaires.
When asked about the financial costs for the State as a result of applying this formula to mitigate the toll increase for users in 2023, the minister estimates this at 140 million euros.
“The government believed that a 10.5% increase in tolls from January would be unbearable and unbearable for Portuguese families. Portuguese families are going through a difficult phase, so it would be incomprehensible that, given the imminent increase in tolls with 10.5%, the government would be watching,” declared a government member.
Pedro Nuno Santos considered the joint solution found “balanced and fair” and was convinced that the concessionaires themselves “understood” the limits that had now been introduced.
On December 14, during a parliamentary hearing, the minister had said that the government was trying to find a solution “that not only protects the people who drive around, who cross the toll, but also protects the Portuguese state”.
Asked about the risks of litigation, Pedro Nuno Santos then pointed out that “funds are provided for in the state budget” for these issues.
Toll prices updates for the following year are proposed by the motorway concessionaires to the government on the basis of the above formula.
The concessionaires were available to negotiate the value with the government, taking into account the inflationary crisis the country is experiencing.
Source: DN
