Strong reaction from the Third Vice President of the Spanish Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, to the announcement made yesterday by the mayor of Badalona (Barcelonès Nord), Xavier García Albiol, to delay the implementation of the Zone for three years. Low Emissions (ZBE). The Spanish government has threatened the popular councilor with going to court to force him to comply with his obligation.
Ribera, in an interview on Catalunya Radio, considers that postponing the ZBE in Badalona, ??as Albiol advanced yesterday, “is a big mistake and a step backwards.” The minister recalled that the measure seeks to reduce pollution caused by particles emitted by vehicles and nitrogen oxide, in short “improving air quality for all citizens.”
Albiol’s reaction, according to Teresa Ribera, “hides the lack of will to work on behalf of the neighbors and the promotion of public transportation” and non-motorized mobility. She also regrets that the mayor of Badalona does not take into account that “very important steps had already been taken before the May elections” in the application of low-emission zones to which all municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants are obliged.
Precisely, García Albiol has replied to the minister that her decision is a “three-year moratorium” thinking about those neighbors who cannot “change their car or van” in times of crisis. “We are very committed to defending the environment,” she points out, “but it does not have to be incompatible with not punishing neighbors.” The mayor, apart from asking Teresa Ribera “not to threaten,” has urged her to hold a meeting “to explain our intentions.”
The decision of the Badalona City Council, according to the minister, will have serious consequences such as “avoiding cutting the number of people that the Global Health Institute estimates die prematurely in Badalona, ??about 200 a year.
On the other hand, Ribera continues, the Badalona City Council will have to face the return of 2.5 million transferred to it by the Ministry of Transport and Urban Agenda to “facilitate investments that make the application of the ZBE simple.” They are finalist European funds about which the community institutions “are enormously demanding.”
The Spanish government interprets that the Badalona City Council’s decision, if it persists, “breaks the law” since the ZBEs were already approved. “It is a flagrant breach” that the state executive will not hesitate, as a last resort, to “take before the contentious courts.”
From the political sphere, Teresa Ribera is “shocked” by what she defines as “an irresponsibility of the mayors of the PP and VOX” who have taken the ZBE “as an identity element” without caring, she affirms, “for the health of neighbors or public transportation alternatives. The Urban Agenda from which the ZBE emanate, according to the minister “is a social agenda that seeks to improve people’s health.”
Despite everything, Ribera acknowledged that public transport in Catalonia does not work as it should. Some alterations that he attributes to the crisis “which caused a reduction in investments” in the maintenance of public transport networks such as the Rodalies service provided by Renfe. “Now we will recover years of neglect” in what he said will be, among others, “a clear commitment to recover the modal change” that will allow bicycle networks to be connected to train stations.
For his part, Fernando Carrera, president of the local PSC group and spokesperson for the socialist municipal group in the Badalona City Council, is in favor of administrations “being flexible and aware of the difficulties that arise from applying the ZBE” but nevertheless affirms “that what a mayor cannot do is break the law” and avoid facing the problem “by postponing decision-making, or refusing to comply with the requirements of European regulations.” As for the socialists, Carrera continues, “we would have liked Badalona to follow the example of other Spanish cities where the PP governs and that are willing to promote ZBEs” such as Alicante, Benidorm or Torrevieja.
Along the same lines, the spokesperson for the Guanyem Badalona municipal group, Dolors Sabater, referred to the controversy generated as “disastrous news.” She affirms that Albiol tries to “give a response to a sector” such as the self-employed or micro businesses “that have difficulties in assuming change” but asserts that “this response cannot happen by failing to apply measures against the devastation caused by climate change.” “. Therefore she concludes that “Badalona cannot get off the wagon to such an important extent.”
