The spokesperson and national leader of the BNG, Ana Pontón, The cost of salvaging the AP-9 is estimated at 904.7 million euros. A figure down compared to the “more than 6 billion” announced by the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente; and even that calculated by the Xunta, less than 2,900. The reason: the nine hundred million corresponds to the market price of the highway and, he assures, that would be what would have to be paid while the Audasa concessionaire would not be subject to compensation in the event of termination of the contract. He explained it this Friday, with the help of a report commissioned from the UDC from which two conclusions emerge: that IThe two extensions granted to the AP-9 are “illegal” for not having been the subject of a call for tenders – hence the absence of compensation for the company, he argued – and that His rescue would be profitable; In other words, if we take as a basis the cost credited by the BNG and the 2.844 million euros of public expenditure that it calculates until 2048, the end date of the concession, in the form of “phantom tolls”.
Pontón presented the results of the study this Saturday, in Santiago, in the company of its two authors, professors Carlos Aymerich and José Antonio Blanco. According to what he said, the contract that Audasa currently maintains and through which it manages the highway is “illegal” because the two extensions from which it benefited, especially the last one, under the Aznar government, involved a “substantial change” in its extension which should have been resolved by a prior call for tenders in which more companies participated. Instead, he denounced, “it was accepted without taking into account other criteria and the government acted in favor of the company.”
Dismissal for official review
In a scenario like this, speakers indicated: European regulations, based on previous case law,considers the operation as a “handmade” contract and that, therefore, “it must be annulled.” For this reason, the concept of a licensed core would not come into effect and there would be no financial compensation for Audasa.
The authors therefore propose “two paths”: either let the file that Brussels has opened to Spain continue its course, with the consequences that may result from the non-compliance it denounces, or for the government to act “in good faith” And motu requests the cancellation of the contract by ordering an ex officio examination this invalidates it. “The Spanish State does not need to wait for Europe to decree that the extension is illegal, but it can use the opinion of the European Commission to assume this illegality and recover the infrastructure,” added the leader nationalist.
The other argument of the nationalist party is the economy which, according to its calculations, would represent a rescue for public coffers. The cost, by 2048, of the concession due to “phantom tolls” is estimated at 2,844 million euros. remuneration paid by the public sector based on the number of users of the infrastructure and which reached 30% of its billing in 2023. With this information, and with that of its market value – which experts consider “the most consistent”, they said, making an approximation – Pontón declared that The potential savings, which would only be real in twenty-four years, would be of the order of 1.9 billion. if the highway were saved now.
Still on the subject of transport, the nationalist deputy Néstor Rego called for the same Friday that the section of the AP-9 between Padrón and Santiago be freed from tolls before the works at O Milladoiro, in Ames’ words, to be “the only way to have an adequate and viable alternative to guarantee circulation” between the two centers in both directions. As it evolves, his group will register initiatives in this direction in Congress and in the municipalities affected by the work.
