Madrid will maintain the Low Emission Zones (ZBE)but first he wants to know what Madrid residents think about them. He City hall of the capital begins this Thursday the processing of the modification of the sustainable mobility ordinance (OMS) in order to preserve this measure that is part of the Madrid 360 environmental sustainability strategy after its annulment by the TSJM. “The capital will not be left without ZBE because they are a successful model to reduce polluting emissions in the city, an unavoidable obligation under European legislation and state”, pointed out the delegate of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility, Borja Carabante.
Therefore, the City Council will submit the measures to prior public consultation to obtain the opinion of citizens and organizations. Those questioned will have 15 calendar days to respond to four questions: “Do you think that traffic restrictions should focus on the most polluting vehicles? How would you favor alternatives to mobility? Do you think that traffic restrictions should be stricter in those areas of the city with the greatest pollution? State legislation requires create ZBEs to meet air quality and climate change obligations. How do you think ZBEs should be regulated so that they effectively protect people’s health by improving air quality?”
This consultation with the people of Madrid precedes the modification of the 2021 ordinance in response to the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid to annul the ZBE (TSJM) for “the insufficiency of its economic impact report” with regard to the economic damages caused to vulnerable groups. The ruling, which could affect certain provisions that regulate ZBEs if it is final, is still pending an appeal, an appeal that the City Council intends to file, but on which it continues working.
The ZBEs respond to the European Parliament and Council
The City Council has recalled that with the WHO they respond to the continued non-compliance with the maximum levels allowed by the European Parliament and the European Council on maintaining ambient air quality and achieve a cleaner atmosphere in Europe. In fact, they consider that all the plans previously implemented in the city, such as Madrid Central, had turned out to be insufficient, as specified by municipal sources.
The City Council will file an appeal against the ruling of the TSJM while preparing the modifications to the ordinance, whose first step is this consultation with the people of Madrid. Specifically, the City Council must justify in the appeal how the Cambia 360 aid plan, through which it has granted a total of 108 million euros since 2020 to facilitate the transition to ecological vehicles and facilitiesit is sufficient to comply with the principle of “just transition” that the magistrates consider unfulfilled.
The TSJM stated in the ruling that vulnerable sectors should have been “offered support measures in the transition process” and that none of these appear in the approval of the ordinance, “goes beyond a referral to the subsidy system.” In response to this, the City Council maintained that the inequality caused by access limitations is compensated with these more than 100 million subsidies for vehicle renewal that the City Council has allocated since 2020.
