PSOE votes in favour of the suspension of the toll proposed by the PP

The Socialist party in the Diputación, Malaga´s provincial authority, has stood up to the government and voted on Wednesday morning in favour of an urgent motion by the PP which proposes the temporary suspension of the toll on the Costa del Sol motorway until the coastal trainline is extended to Marbella and Estepona

Antonio M. Romero

Wednesday, 21 February 2024, 22:12

The PSOE in the Diputación, Malaga's provincial authority, has stood up to the government and voted on Wednesday morning in favour of an urgent motion by the PP which proposes the temporary suspension of the toll on the Costa del Sol motorway (AP-7) until the coastal trainline is extended to Marbella and Estepona. Following an amendment, tabled by the local Socialists, the Spanish government run by their own party is called on to take on the cost of waiving the fee.

The support of the Socialists at the February meeting of the Diputación comes after the government and the PSOE leadership in Malaga criticised this proposal when it was presented by the provincial president of the PP, Patricia Navarro, on 8 February. The following day, the government’s deputy prime minister, María Jesús Montero, accused the PP of seeking "confrontation" with the request to suspend the toll, while the leader of the Malaga socialists, Dani Pérez, urged the PP "not to deceive the people and not to be populist" and lamented that the PP "only think of opening up tolls when they are not in government".

The PSOE said that the Socialists have maintained their position on the improvement of mobility on the coast recalling that in 2017 the PP in the Diputación voted against an initiative of the PSOE which called for the opening of the toll road in case of accidents on the motorway like the one that occurred in February of that year and collapsed the A-7 for 14 hours.

"We will always defend and support what is best for Malaga, whoever governs in Madrid," said PSOE spokesperson Josele González, who added: "We are consistent. We have supported these proposals when the PP was in government and we do so now that the PSOE is in government. We have supported these projects as mayors, myself when I was mayor of Mijas and Pepe Bernal when he was mayor of Marbella, and we do so now that we are in opposition."

The Socialist spokesman said that the PP "is not coherent" because "depending on the colour of the central government it votes for one thing or another. We also see this when we bring initiatives to improve health or education in the province. The PP always votes against. It does not want to inconvenience [PP Andalusian president] Moreno Bonilla, in the same way that it did not want to before with Rajoy".

The president of the Diputación, Francisco Salado, stressed that today is "an important day" for Malaga province and asked the government for a solution to "one of the priority problems that must be solved in Malaga such as mobility and the lack of rail infrastructure to connect the entire Costa del Sol and the Campo de Gibraltar and not slow the economic growth of the province and Andalucía".

The motion was approved unanimously by the four groups represented in the plenary session of the Diputación (PP, PSOE, Vox and Con Málaga). The agreement demanded that the government put into play "all its capacity" to implement a railway infrastructure that connects the most populated towns of the Costa del Sol and reaches the Campo de Gibraltar and that until the train reaches Marbella and Estepona, the toll on the motorway be temporarily suspended, and that the government must take on "the cost of this suspension".

The motion also asks the government to explain what has happened to the 8.4 million euros budgeted over the last ten years to carry out studies on this train and what has been done with the document presented by the former PP minister of Public Works, Íñigo de la Serna, in January 2018. In addition, an amendment by the PSOE has been included in which the government is asked to promote a "more updated study to develop the Andalusian Mediterranean train".

Con Málaga also asked the Junta to develop the resolution, proposed by the group Por Andalucía, where the government is asked to transfer the railway competences in the region "as long as the government ensures the completion of the railway network including the Andalusian Mediterranean train to the Campo de Gibraltar and the transfers, prior to assuming such competences".

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