Measure expected to cost €113 million
Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS) has gone on the record saying that its “first measure” in the case of a victory in the upcoming legislative elections will be to “eliminate all tolls on the formerly free motorways (SCUTs) in the Algarve and the interior of Portugal.”
A very similar promise was made by the party in 2015, when António Costa (then the PS candidate for the legislative elections) strongly suggested that his intention was to abolish the tolls on the Algarve’s A22 motorway (also known as Via do Infante).
And while it is true that toll prices have been cut since then, the promise of a “free-to-use” motorway in the Algarve remains unfulfilled.
PS Algarve has said in a statement, however, that the idea was fully supported during a lunch in Albufeira on Sunday.
“PS Algarve has always defended a Via do Infante tending-towards-free. In 2015, knowing the financial situation that Portugal was in, our commitment was to reduce tolls by 50%, and having arrived in 2024, tolls on the Via do Infante cost 60% less compared to when the right was ruling the government,” the regional delegation of PS said.
The statement goes on to say that the “secretary-general of PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, has guaranteed that the first measure of the next PS government will be to eliminate all tolls on the formerly free motorways in the Algarve and the interior of the country.”
However, abolishing tolls on the A22 motorway and other ex-SCUTs is measure that will have a significant financial impact on the national infrastructure authority Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP), its president Miguel Cruz has warned.
Doing so would cost IP around €113 million, which accounts for around one third of the company’s income in 2022, he said in an interview with Jornal de Negócios/Antena 1.
In order for this measure to be implemented, Miguel Cruz stated that the government will have to come up with some other form of revenue, such as a “capital increase”.
The abolishment of the A22 motorway tolls has been one of the Algarve’s hot topics ever since the tolls were introduced on December 8, 2011. Anti-toll groups such as CUVI quickly contested the introduction of the tolls, questioning their legality and stating that they should never have been introduced on ex-SCUTs – roads which were paid for with EC funds and never intended to be tolled.
michael.bruxo@portugalresident.com
