Yesterday, the courts invalidated the three low-emission zones in force in the city of Madrid. A news that has revolutionized the drivers who circulate on its streets, and also those who will soon no longer be able to do so because they do not have an environmental label on their vehicles. The High Court of Justice of Madrid has decided to partially accept the appeal filed by Vox against the ordinance that includes these traffic restrictions, because it considers that the economic report prior to its approval is “insufficient” and has ignored people with less economic capacity to access vehicles that comply with environmental regulations. The City Council is studying a possible appeal and has already stated that the fines will not be canceled and that the low-emission zones will remain in force since the sentence is not final.
“Madrid 360 has been a model of success,” explained Borja Carabante, councilor for mobility, this Tuesday. According to him, “the European directive on air quality, reconciling economic activity and offering mobility opportunities” in public transport has been respected,” said Borja Carabante. They have until October 23 to present their appeal to the Supreme Court.
The court’s decision is a boost for Vox, which sees support for its position of radical opposition to traffic restrictions in the center of Madrid, already extended to the entire city for vehicles without an environmental label that are not registered in Madrid, and which from next January will also affect those of residents if they do not have a label either. Its thesis throughout this period has been that Martínez-Almeida deceived the people of Madrid by telling them that he was going to lift the Carmena restrictions, and not only did he not do it, but he increased them, says its leader, Javier Ortega-Smith. Yesterday, he insisted that this “courageous” decision was a “day of joy for Vox and for the people of Madrid” and said that the mayor “should resign.” Her colleague Rocío Monasterio, regional spokesperson for Vox, said somewhat hyperbolically that after this suspension, “freedom can return to Madrid.”
There are currently three low-emission zones in operation in Madrid: the one in the central district, the one in Plaza Elíptica and the one that applies to the whole city. If the car does not have a label and is not registered in Madrid, its circulation on any street in the city is prohibited, and if it is, it can circulate on any street as long as it is not the ZBE of the central district or Plaza Elíptica.
The rest of the cars with the label, whether or not they are registered in Madrid, now benefit from this regime: with a B or C label, the restrictions are limited to the ZBE of the central district and the Plaza Elíptica, although you can access them to move to a parking lot. With the ECO label, they can move throughout Madrid, with parking on the street within the ZBE for a maximum of two hours; and with the ZERO label, its circulation is authorized throughout the city and free access to the ZBE.
All these rules were in effect until yesterday, when the order was annulled, and they continue to apply today, given that the TSJM’s ruling is not final: an appeal can be filed with the Supreme Court and the city hall has 30 days to do so.
Insufficient
In its ruling, the Second Section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the High Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) annuls the parts of the Order that define the ZBE. It rejects various allegations by the applicants regarding possible irregularities in the procedure for approving the Order, but considers that the economic impact report prior to the approval of the Order is “manifestly insufficient”.
The judges do not question the power of the municipal administration to adopt measures to protect health and the environment, or to control air pollution, in order to comply with European regulations. However, they consider that there is a “manifest inadequacy of the economic impact report” of the measures adopted in the ordinance, which required taking into account their economic consequences, in order to be able to proceed “… to an adequate weighting of the balance of benefits and costs and the possibility of adopting less restrictive measures of equivalent effect, or which could produce a discriminatory effect on the most economically vulnerable groups.
The judgment emphasises that the restrictive measures are likely to affect persons with lower economic capacity, who are prevented or seriously hampered in their ability to access new vehicles that comply with environmental requirements, but no assessment of this factor has been carried out.
“We have not taken into account the significant economic consequences for a significant sector of the population, the one with the lowest economic capacity, the most vulnerable to restrictive measures; nor the impact on the activity of companies, in particular the smallest of those operating on the market,” the judgment underlines.
After the approval of the ordinance, several calls for help to change cars were made. And, in a nod to Vox, a moratorium on the application of the rule in the central zone for goods delivery vehicles with the B label was also approved, which was annulled in September 2023 by the courts, after an appeal by the PSOE and More Madrid.
The reactions to the decision were immediate: Rocío Monasterio (Vox) defended that “years of work are bearing fruit”. Only Vox directly opposed Carmena and Almeida’s Madrid Central. Rita Maestre, spokesperson for Más Madrid, regretted that “justice wants to prevail over the will of the people of Madrid”. And she blamed the mayor: everything is a consequence of the “boycott that Almeida launched and for which he must now assume responsibility”. The same reasoning that Enma López followed, for the PSOE: “These are botched actions by the mayor, which generate legal uncertainty among citizens”.
The Association of Associated European Motorists intends to ask the mayor to immediately stop processing the 1.7 million fines issued for entering these low-emission zones and to return the amount collected, which it estimates at around 330 million euros.
From the environmental organizations, the measure fell like a bucket of cold water. For Verdes-Equo, it is “unacceptable” to put “economic interests before health”. And Ecologists in Action recall that the ZBE “are not a capricious measure but an obligation derived from the law on climate change, from a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union and from the constitutional protection of the rights to health, the environment and ultimately to life.
