Antonio Vivaldi's Spring
sounded in a tunnel in Madrid on May 9, 2007. It was the inauguration of the last tunnel that closed the burial of a gigantic work for the capital of Spain: the M-30.
A ring road of almost 33 kilometers that surrounds thousands of buildings in a diamond shape and where more than 300,000 vehicles now circulate daily.
It is the busiest road in Spain, according to municipal data.
That morning in May 2007 also marked the end of a project that put the City Council in debt of more than 4,000 million euros.
Even the mayor at the time, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, of the PP, cried - with joy, of course - because he saw in his eyes the end of one of his great political bets.
“Gallardón went on a motorcycle to visit the works and then reminded each corresponding councilor of the failures, the imperfections, what he had discovered while he was alone there,” said the mayor's first deputy and right-hand man, Manuel Cobo, in a report published in September 2007 by this newspaper.
“He's one of those types of people who doesn't care about one thing or another about anything.”
Gallardón bet the future and management of the M-30 on privatization and 20% fell into private hands in 2005. Now, when 19 years have passed, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, amends this decision and will remunicipalize the M-30, which will become 100% public as of January 1, 2026.
The new management, according to sources from the Works area, is taken after a study prepared by the City Council's Treasury department.
This report maintains that the municipal public coffers pay more than 50 million euros annually to the company that owns that 20% of the public company: Emesa.
In 2005, this company obtained the public contract to maintain the highway for 35 years.
Emesa is formed by the ACS Group and Ferrovial and has nearly 300 workers, who, after remunicipalization in 2026, will be substituted and will maintain all their working conditions.
José María Álvarez del Manzano, Ana Botella, José Luis Martínez Almeida and Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón celebrate the 40th anniversary of Ifema.Manuel Casamayón
The Madrid City Council will now buy that 20% from Emesa based on a clause in the contract signed in 2005, but which provided for a review for 2024 with this possibility.
However, it is still unknown what the amount will be.
A spokeswoman for the Works area explains that it will not be higher than the net value of Emesa's shares at the end of this year.
The only figure known so far is what the annual maintenance of the M-30 costs for Madrid residents, which amounts to more than 160 million euros.
That is, around 450,000 euros per day.
And to this we must add what the City Council pays to Emesa which, according to calculations by the Works area, amounts to around another 50 million euros per year.
This is what Madrid City Council will actually save with remunicipalization.
Or put another way: the City Council could have saved 950 million euros in 19 years if it had not privatized that 20%.
The Accounts Chamber questioned the model
“The convenience of addressing this change in model now,” say sources from the City Council's Works area, “has become evident with the progress of the execution of the contract.”
The reality is that this step was already taken two years ago in a municipal plenary session and at the request of the PSOE, which urged the Almeida Government to begin “as quickly as possible” the administrative procedures necessary to establish direct management of the public conservation and conservation service. exploitation of the M-30.
All political groups voted in favor.
The Accounts Chamber questioned this Gallardón model in a report on the management of the M-30 works.
In a harsh analysis, published in January 2017, the organization identified a lack of technical, legal and economic viability studies, excessive interest charges by the private manager, as well as “important differences” between the real costs and those billed to the City Council. .
Furthermore, the report said that the City Council financed the cost of the electricity supply when, by contract, the successful bidder should do so.
Furthermore, in November 2016, the City Council itself, then governed by Manuela Carmena (Now Madrid), verified how the Emesa company did not comply with several of the requirements of the signed contract such as, among others, maintenance in the tunnels, number of operators dedicated to incidents and emergencies or deficiencies in the fire protection system.
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