The three-year moratorium announced by Xavier Garcia Albiol on the application of the Low Emissions Zone in Badalona (Barcelonès Nord) will cease to have effect in mid-2024 and will begin to be implemented in 15% of the territory, after which it will increase progressively, but without imposing sanctions. The PP government, after its controversy with the Minister of Ecological Transition and at the risk of having to return 2.5 million of the European subsidy, will draft a new ordinance and will commission the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) with a new project, as well as a mobility study to the Reial Automòbil Club de Catalunya (RACC).
Albiol has detailed the content of the first contacts he has had with the Ministry of Ecological Transition, after the controversy that arose after the exchange of statements with Minister Teresa Ribera, who ended up threatening to take the moratorium to court. “We have asked them for a general rethinking,” explains the mayor, since the approved ordinance “was a bunch of nonsense” that would have made it easier for in 2027, faced with the first sanctions, “someone to file an appeal, win it, and paralyze the entire ZBE.” . For its part, according to El País, the ministry is not formally aware of these contacts.
The next municipal plenary session will suspend the ordinance on ZBEs in force and reactivate a new regulation. As detailed by the municipal government to La Vanguardia, the previous municipal ordinance on the ZBE that “had been prepared by the previous government” (PSC-ERC-BCP-JxCat) was poorly drafted because, according to municipal sources “it does not even include the economic report on the impact of the implementation, nor the contamination report, nor the contamination report” all of which are mandatory before approving an ordinance. In the opinion of the mayor, Xavier García Albiol, “the previous executive acted hastily and did not do things well.”
The ordinance that had been promoted by the quadripartite chaired by the socialist Rubén Guijarro, according to the current executive, “considered 90% of Badalona as a Low Emissions Zone” immediately. On the other hand, the new ordinance that will begin to take shape in the next plenary session foresees that it will begin to be applied in 15% of the territory, from the center of the city, increasing gradually until its final implementation scheduled between 2026 and 2027.
In parallel with the preparation of the new ordinance, scheduled for the first quarter of 2024, the mayor has assured that he has commissioned a report from the RACC to resolve the possible effects of the ZBE on several projects planned for the pedestrianization of the urban center, especially in the Francesc Layret street, especially with regard to vehicle circulation, but also urban transport.
The Badalona government clarifies that the approval of a new ordinance does not imply the immediate application of sanctions. “The government will not begin to sanction until the ZBE is fully deployed” and residents know their obligations in detail, for which several communication campaigns will be carried out. Before applying any sanction, the City Council is obliged by law to inform those affected “so that they know the execution deadlines.” According to the first deputy mayor, Juan Fernández “we cannot demand from the neighbors what we have not been able to do.”
