Spain publishes final call for rail freight eco-incentives
The Spanish ministry of transport activated the third (and last) call for rail freight eco-incentives worth 23.5 million euros. "Railway operators will be able to apply for aid from 1 February to 31 March 2025", the ministry pointed out. The first tranche entailed 26.1 million euros, which was divided among eight companies: Renfe Mercancias, Captrain Espana, Medway, Transfesa Logistics, Low Cost Rail, CSP Logiten, Go Transport Servicios and CEFSA. The amounts were distributed based on the volumes transported by these companies between April and December 2022.
The second one, for which 21 million euros were allocated, went to the same operators except for state-owned Renfe Mercancias.
The company is in fact struggling to increase (or maintain) its volumes, which made it ineligible for the second round of eco-incentives as they were based on volumes moved throughout 2023.
Taking DANA into account
This final call will "subsidise traffic carried out from 1 January to 31 December 2024", the ministry stated. One of the factors taken into account while calculating these subsidies will be the impact of the extreme weather conditions, known as DANA, that hit Spain a couple of months ago. "For this reason, the parameters for calculating the eco-incentive have been made more flexible, allowing the beneficiary to choose the period of the year based on which the increase with respect to previous years is calculated", the ministry specified. Moreover, the volume increases caused by the two previous calls for eco-incentives will also be excluded from the calculation.
Finally, "a compensation mechanism will be applied to adjust the total traffic in 2024 to a scenario without incidents, taking as a reference the traffic of 2019", according to the ministry. It was not specified how this mechanism will work in practice nor the amounts which will be allocated for it.
Eco-incentives instead of higher road tolls
This rail freight eco-incentive measure was introduced at the end of 2023 by the Spanish former ministry of transport Raquel Sanchez. It was the result of negotiations with the European Commission to unlock funds for Spain's Recovery and Resilience Facility.
The Commission initially wanted Spain to implement road freight tolls to boost the modal shift to rail. However, the Spanish government categorically refused, introducing these eco-incentives for rail freight operators instead.
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References
- ^ See the offer (www.railfreight.com)