Catalan cities that 'pardon' residents with polluting cars

BarcelonaJanuary 1, 2025 was a date marked on the calendar of residents of the Barcelona metropolitan area. After months of half-heartedness, six low-emission zones (LEZ) began to operate at full capacity and, therefore, with fines. This is the case of Sant Boi de Llobregat, Cerdanyola, Sant Joan Despí, Gavà and Viladecans. In these cities, residents with polluting cars can circulate in the affected neighborhoods for a maximum of 24 days a year if they are registered, but if they exceed this threshold and do not prove any special circumstances, such as low income levels or transport needs for health reasons, they are fined. There is only one exception: Cerdanyola has decided to exempt all registered residents from fines for the next three years. Now, other municipalities will follow the same path.

The Cerdanyola model was developed within the AMB – the person responsible for mobility is its mayor, Carlos Cordón – and was endorsed taking into account the reality of the municipality. According to sources from the entity, Cerdanyola is a city with much less public transport than the others, so it has been decided to give a time frame in which an effort will be made to improve interurban connections. Although the opposition in Cerdanyola accuses Cordón of having distanced himself from the AMB consensus by lowering the requirement of the ZBE, the municipal government argues that the real impact on traffic is very small: only 1.5% of traffic in Cerdanyola corresponds to residents with a car without an environmental label.

Could any other metropolitan municipality join this commitment? To start with, those that have already started in 2025 with the model agreed by the AMB rule it out, according to sources consulted by the ARA. Municipalities such as El Prat – governed by the comuns, staunch defenders of the ZBE – stress that they have made many efforts to publicise the social exceptions for citizens with low incomes or transporters about to retire and that, in practice, there are very few offending cars. On a normal working day, unmarked vehicles represent only 1.6% of traffic, they say. In fact, El Prat also started the year issuing fines, but postponed the sanctions in March due to technical problems with the control cameras, according to municipal sources.

However, Sant Cugat is open to making some changes to its ZBE, which was implemented with sanctions already in 2021. It was the second Catalan municipality to do so after Barcelona, ​​​​and punishes with fines of 200 euros or more those who drive a polluting vehicle during the hours of validity of the ZBE. After four years of testing, Sant Cugat wants to study what works and what to adapt. The rethinking coincides with the change of political color of the City Council, which was previously led by a tripartite coalition of ERC, PSC and CUP and It is now in the hands of Junts.

Decaffeinating the ZBE?

The Cerdanyola model is unique within the metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona, ​​but not in Catalonia. There are other cities that have decided not to fine residents living within the ZBE when they start issuing fines in 2025: this is the case of the second metropolitan crown, which fought especially for the ZBE to be less restrictive, with Sabadell, Terrassa, Granollers, Mollet and Rubí at the forefront.

Beyond that, the rest of the Catalan capitals have adopted the same model. In Girona, the ZBE will come into operation in the summer of 2025 and residents who have a car registered in the city from 2024 or earlier will not be fined either. Tarragona will exempt them for a year, while Lleida, which will start fining in the summer, also lifts the veto.

Does that mean watering down the ZBE? The Air Quality Plan Horizon 2027, the Government's instrument that regulates its basic conditions, does not explicitly include this exception, which entities such as the Catalan Federation of Municipalities expressly requested to be included by the then Minister for Climate Action, David Mascort. Be that as it may, the current PSC Government – ​​which governs in most of the cities where the exception has been applied to residents – has no plans to reform the Air Quality Plan. Sources from the Ministry of Territory add that the Government wants the new plan, to be applied from 2028, "to be drawn up in a consensual manner" with the town councils and "all the organisations involved in air quality".

Badalona, ​​​​free verse

Meanwhile, the metropolitan ZBE that has not yet started is that of Badalona. The government of Xavier Garcia Albiol is delaying it as much as possible after suspending in October 2023 the ordinance that applied to 40,000 cars in the city. Albiol's thesis is that, before requiring citizens to change their cars, support measures must be put in place for those affected. Municipal sources specify that, in Badalona, ​​​​an external study is now being carried out to define the implementation phases of the ZBE. The government considers that the initial layout was too wide and is in favour of activating the phases of the new ZBE "progressively, as environmental indicators justify it."

Another metropolitan municipality that is making a mess of the implementation of the ZBE is Castelldefels, also governed by the PP. The ordinance is expected to be approved this year, in line with the model agreed in the AMB, but it wants to apply a moratorium on fines until 2030 to drivers who have difficulty changing vehicles and who need them in their daily lives. If both Badalona and Castelldefels do not activate the ZBE during 2025, they could risk losing the multi-million euro state aid for the improvement of public transport, given that state regulations make it a condition for carrying out the transfer, according to sources from the AMB.