The Sustainable Mobility Law, the draft of which was submitted by the Government to the Congress of Deputies in February, should be approved before the end of the year in order to access a new allocation of more than 10 billion euros from European funds.
However, Carlos Bravo, an environmental consultant, points out to Mobility Portal España that its final approval and entry into force before the end of 2024 seems “increasingly unlikely, although not impossible.”
Why? Because most of the process is still pending in the Congress of Deputies, after which it must go to the Senate, the second chamber of the Spanish Parliament.
An additional amendment process will take place in the Senate before the new text of the bill returns to Congress for final approval.
“Given the complexity of the procedure, it is unlikely that it will be approved in the next three or four months before the end of the year,” he explains.
And he emphasizes: “It will depend on the willingness of the Socialist Parliamentary Group to reach an agreement with other groups, such as SUMAR, ERC, EH-Bildu, Podemos, among others, who want to provide greater climate ambition to this bill.”
The Sustainable Mobility Bill was first processed in the last legislature, before the early general elections in July 2023.
When Parliament was dissolved for this reason, the project fell through and after the elections, the new coalition government, under the leadership of Pedro Sánchez and the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility Óscar Puente, decided to take up the same first draft and re-submit it without changes in Parliament.
In this context, Bravo indicates that it is not clear whether in order to access European funds it is necessary for the law to be approved before the end of the year or whether it is sufficient for its parliamentary process to have begun in 2024.
In the latter case, the amount could be accessed.
What is the problem that is delaying its publication in the Official State Gazette?
Instead of implementing the changes to the bill requested in the legislature, the same text was introduced in February 2024.
Consequently, Bravo, in his capacity as spokesperson for the entities he is coordinating on this matter, calls for modifications to the content of the project to increase its ambition and effective commitment to the decarbonisation of the transport-mobility sector.
Among the organizations it represents are the Climate Alliance, the Association of Brands and Bicycles of Spain (AMBE), Workers’ Commissions (CC.OO.), ConBici, the Youth Council of Spain (CJE), Ecologists in Action (EeA), Eco-Union, and the Federation of Consumers and Users CECU.
As well as the Ecology and Development Foundation (ECODES), the Renewable Foundation, Greenpeace, the Platform for a New Energy Model (Px1NME), the Promotion of Public Transport (PTP), Transport & Environment (T&E) and the General Union of Workers (UGT).
According to the consultant, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, and the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge all agreed that “it is necessary to include decarbonisation objectives”.
But here a second challenge arose: the elections in the Basque Country (21 April) and in Catalonia (12 May), followed by the European elections, in addition to the period of inactivity in the summer.
Now that these have been completed, the deadline for submitting amendments is expected to close in September and the parliamentary debate will resume.
In this regard, when consulted by Mobility Portal España about the progress of the Law, Deputy César Ramos, of the Socialist Parliamentary Group, declared that “there is no news” in this regard.
What changes are expected in the Law?
One of the main problems identified by Carlos Bravo is the absence of clear decarbonisation objectives.
Although the Law should be a tool to achieve climate neutrality, the current draft does not set concrete targets for reducing emissions in the transport sector.
This gap has been the subject of criticism from various parties and interest groups, who are calling for more ambitious and effective regulations.
“Another of the improvements we are requesting through the standard is the implementation of the Low Emission Zone (LEZ) , the development of which in Spain is a real disaster,” he stressed.
The Climate Change and Energy Transition Law of 2021 required municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to adopt sustainable mobility plans that included LEZs from 1 January 2023.
However, a year and a half later, “only 24 of the 151 cities have complied with this obligation.”
“There are more than 100 towns in the planning process and 13 that have declared themselves in rebellion, such as Arganda del Rey in Madrid,” Bravo explains.
The problem, according to the expert, lies in the lack of effective punitive measures within a sanctioning regime to address non-compliance with these obligations.
What does the success of the Law depend on?
“This is largely due to the government’s willingness to consider the improvements proposed by a number of progressive parties and by our coalition of 15 social, trade union, environmental and youth organisations,” says Bravo.
