53.5% of the 400 million euro aid for fleet renewal is allocated to scrapping

The requests exceed the allocated budget by 80 million euros

MADRID, 17 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

53.5% of the call for aid from the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility for the transformation of truck and bus fleets (Moves Mitma), endowed with 400 million euros, is allocated to vehicle scrapping.

According to data from the Ministry, until February 2024, requests to scrap heavy vehicles within the framework of these subsidies totaled 256.8 million euros, compared to the 214 million euros that have been requested to buy low-emission trucks and buses. .

Sources from the sector have conveyed to Europa Press their discontent with these figures, since the aid is being allocated more to the removal of vehicles than to the purchase of new ones, which means preventing the renewal of a severely aged park and reducing the offer of services. transportation, which is already hampered by the lack of drivers.

In addition, they fear that these subsidies are being used to finance transporters who already had the intention of retiring from the profession, seeking to scrap their vehicle at the end of their activity, receiving money for it, for which there is already other specific aid. for this.

The subsidy amounts to 25,000 euros for each vehicle delivered registered before January 1, 2019, limited to 30 vehicles per company or 1 if it is a natural person, without having the obligation to purchase a new vehicle in exchange.

The Government's objective with this item is to scrap about 20,000 trucks and 3,000 buses, which will mean an estimated reduction in CO2 carbon dioxide emissions of 600,000 tons per year.

On the other hand, other sources in the sector explain that it is "reasonable" that there are more requests to scrap than to buy, because there are still very few zero-emission vehicles and, even taking into account the subsidy, they are still very expensive, while that there are many scrap vehicles.

Regarding the purchase of new trucks and buses, the aid is 200,000 euros for the self-employed and small businesses, 175,000 euros for medium-sized companies and 15,000 euros for large companies. Until now, the purchase of 1,535 buses and only 688 trucks has been subsidized, a figure that is striking, considering there are six times more trucks than buses in Spain.

Now, the Ministry is preparing a new call - the current one ends in April - and it is expected to maintain the same line as until now, which could once again make scrapping exceed purchases. Furthermore, the sector fears that a direct discount on the purchase will still not be proposed and will continue to rely on the subsequent delivery of aid, in some cases up to two years later.

There is a third aid, that for the installation of charging points, which until now has only concentrated 8.3 million euros requested from a total of 224 points, a small figure for the current needs of Spain in this type of infrastructure.

Once the funds have been distributed among the different autonomous communities according to their population, there are 27.2 million euros that have not been requested by some of them, so they could be distributed among those that have excess requests, since these They exceed the allocated budget by 80 million euros.