The courts have removed the low-emission zones in the city of Madrid at the request of Vox. The High Court of Justice of the capital has annulled a good part of the 2021 ordinance that modified the regulations, considering that the reports provided to the process were insufficient and has annulled the articles that establish the low-emission zone “in the entire municipality of Madrid” as well as those that establish the protected areas of Centro and Plaza Elíptica, without closing the door to the City Council led by José Luis Martínez-Almeida being able to reinstate them by not eliminating the entire article. In this case, according to the judges, there is a “manifest inadequacy” of the economic impact report prior to the approval of the ordinance.
The consequences of this decision are still unclear. The Madrid City Council is studying the sentence and wondering if it will present any type of appeal to the Supreme Court with a magnifying glass placed on the system of sanctioning fines and how it is affected by the resolution of the High Court of Madrid.
In September 2021, the mayor fulfilled one of his great electoral promises: to replace Manuela Carmena’s Madrid Central with new regulations. His ordinance was carried out with the support of the four councilors who separated from Más Madrid and was received thanks to the resources of Vox and Más Madrid. In its allegations, the extreme right denounced various irregularities in the approval of the ordinance and also highlighted the lack of arguments and data in the economic impact report of the project.
The low-emission zones launched by José Luis Martínez-Almeida included video surveillance in the affected areas to detect cars with environmental classification A, petrol cars registered before 2000 and diesel cars before 2006, to restrict their access, allowing the entry of vehicles with labels B and C. In the case of the Plaza Elíptica, the confluence of many ring roads in the south of the capital and the exit from the Toledo motorway, the city council hoped to remove almost 1,500 cars from the morning rush hour.
The judges do not doubt that the Madrid City Council can launch this type of initiative to stop the effects of pollution related to road traffic and thus protect health and the environment, but they understand that the economic considerations of the order have not been properly analyzed. According to the contentious and administrative judges, there is a lack of “an adequate balance of benefits and costs and the possibility of adopting less restrictive measures with an equivalent effect, or which could produce a discriminatory effect for the most economically vulnerable groups.”
The judges explain that the council’s measures affect “thousands of professional vehicles” and affect competition and the market. He claims that it should have taken into account, for example, the situation of “groups of companies with less economic capacity for the renewal of vehicles”, referring to the self-employed or SMEs.
This decision can still be appealed before the Supreme Court next month. The legal services of the Madrid City Council are currently analyzing the sentence, sources from the Mobility sector inform this newspaper, so they have not yet decided whether or not to appeal the resolution.
