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It is a little embarrassing to see the Spanish minister of transport, the former mayor of Gavà Raquel Sánchez, singing the praises of "Catalonia free of tolls", after the many years during which the Socialists have opposed this slogan from the Spanish government; awarding herself medals for the final lifting of the toll barriers on the last day of August affecting 556 kilometres of Catalan toll motorways, when it has been a matter of the concessions having expired; and, finally, demanding that the Catalan government do the same and also remove the vehicle charges for four sections of highway, whose administrative concessions expire between 2037 and 2039 and which total about 120 kilometres on which tolls are paid.

Let's face it: since 1977, no party has ruled in Spain for as long as the PSOE, with three different periods in government adding up to 24 years in the Moncloa palace: 14 under Felipe González, seven under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and more than three with Pedro Sánchez. More than enough time to have been able to reverse a situation that placed Catalonia in first place on the toll roads podium. Not only that, but while miles and miles of new toll highways were being built here, free highways were opened in many places in Spain. This happened with both PSOE and PP governments - the latter under José Maria Aznar and Mariano Rajoy - and they looked the other way. Moreover, this policy was shamelessly accompanied by an even more scandalous one, that of the chronic deficit of infrastructure investment allocated in the Spanish government budget, always below what  Catalonia should have received proportionate to its population, while the territory also led the figures for the amount promised in the budget which was never in fact spent. Thus, two swindles for the price of one.

Perhaps because of the short time she has held office, or due to her not wanting to be out of step with the popular euphoria on the matter, the current minister knows that, in a period of not much more than two years, by one means or another, payments for highway use will once again be made because an EU regulation requires it. That was the direction she was arguing in and the PSOE almost as well. However, it's treated differently since the concession has ended while they are in power.

But perhaps the most scandalous thing is that she now asks the Catalan government to remove the tolls from the other motorways that are still user-pays. For a government that played a large role in the bail-out of the bankrupt Madrid radial motorways without blushing, for which we have yet to see if the bill comes in as any less than 3 billion euros, this is extremely cynical. In any case, what the Sánchez executive should do is put 50 per cent of this amount on the table to take over the highways it is asking the Catalan government to free up. Meanwhile the central government has, of course, strangled the Catalan public coffers with a system of autonomous community funding that became obsolete years ago and is hugely detrimental to Catalonia.

There are times when it is best not to appear in the photo. But not everyone is capable of that.