A court ruling this afternoon has left Barcelona's Low Emissions Zone (ZBE, in its Catalan acronym) under threat, unleashing a new storm of criticism against the Ada Colau city government over how the traffic-restriction measure has been implemented since it came into force in 2020 as a way of reducing pollution levels in the city. In fact, the High Court of Catalonia (TSJC) annulled the controversial Barcelona city council ordinance this Monday, but its sentence is not final and the existing ZBE rules continue to apply for the moment. The court decision maintains that the municipal ordinance regarding the restriction of the circulation of certain vehicles in the city of Barcelona approved by the city council, on December 20th, 2019, "has deficiencies in its preparation", lacks "decisive reports" to justify its implementation, and is "excessive" in its geographical scope and the type of vehicles that are excluded, among other arguments. However, appeals have yet to be heard, and the Barcelona city council has already advised that both the ZBE and its penalties for non-compliance are still in force in the meantime.
Also in the meantime, a new wave of criticism of the mayor from municipal opposition parties has been triggered. The Colau council has shown a “lack of rigour” in the way it introduced the ZBE, said ERC councillor Max Zañartu, for "not satisfactorily justifying the adoption" of the key measure. "We regret that in the case of the ZBE, as already happened with the PEUAT plan to control tourist accommodation, the municipal government has again shown that it is not able to get measures right from the beginning," added the councillor, who went on to say that the current ruling may be an opportunity to rethink aspects of the ZBE, in order to make the measure more efficient in reducing pollution, and more equitable in not leaving anyone behind in terms of income. In addition, ERC recalled that already in the court hearing process, his group warned of “the lack of a serious environmental evaluation of the measure, the lack of analysis of alternatives, and the problems of technical and social inequity of the measure”.
City leaders "solely responsible for botch-job"
In turn, the municipal group of the Junts party gave the view that Colau (Barcelona en Comú) and deputy mayor Jaume Collboni (PSC), "are solely responsible for the botch-job of the Low Emissions Zone and for the fact that the TSJC has overturned this tool to combat pollution emissions in the Catalan capital". "Things can't get any worse," added Junts, noting that despite agreeing with the spirit of the measure on restricting the movement of certain vehicles in the city of Barcelona to reduce emissions”, the party had always argued that it was necessary to “moderate some of the measures it included" and advocated a more rational and progressive application. "To a large extent, the TSJC ruling now backs the objections we made during the debate on the introduction of the measure," said Junts.
For her part, the leader of Ciudadanos on the city council, Luz Guilarte, pointed out that once again, "justice has shown the city government that it was wrong." "The implementation of the ZBE is another ideological mess applied without rigour and without consensus," she added, noting that this is a measure that "harms the most vulnerable." Party sources in the Valents group noted that they "had argued that it was unfair and disproportionate for many self-employed people who had old cars, but did not necessarily pollute more than new ones," they added, adding that "justice has proved us right." Finally, PP spokesman Oscar Ramirez called on Colau to cancel the Low Emissions Zone altogether and to cancel all the fines imposed so far as it considers that they are unjust.
NO2 limits only exceeded at two stations
The complaints against the measure, brought to court by several associations of transport users and professionals, among other groups, noted that Barcelona's delimited ZBE is "totally disproportionate", since it has only been proven that two pollution measuring stations (Eixample and Gràcia) of all of those in the area affected by the zone, fail to comply with the maximum permitted levels of emissions of nitrogen dioxide (NO2). For its part, the city council lawyers stated that the average traffic intensity and the number of residents in the area had been taken into account.
Among its conclusions, the court stated today that the environmental reports presented to justify the measure "do not fulfill the function of ensuring that those responsible for processing and approving the ordinance have the necessary information to enable them to estimate the impact that the measure will have on citizens and the means necessary for its application", nor do they present "sufficient motivation of the need and opportunity of the projected regulations, nor an evaluation of the different alternatives that exist, nor an analysis of the economic and legal consequences that will arise from its application”, steps which are required according to the jurisprudence. The court adds that from the moment that driving in the city of Barcelona during working days and hours is dependent on changing any vehicle that lacks the required environmental certificate, "there is no doubt that those most affected are groups that do not have the financial capacity to change their vehicle with an environmental certificate and intend to continue driving in Barcelona”.
609,000 fewer polluting journeys
Just last week, the city council gave results of the ZBE measure. The deployment of the Rondes BCN Low Emission Zone (ZBE Rondes BCN) has reduced the number of journeys in the vehicles that pollute most by 609,000, leading to a reduction in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels in the city. These are the main conclusions drawn from the first report on the implementation and monitoring of this measure, which entered into force on 1st January 2020, a period also marked by the restrictions arising from the Covid-19 pandemic - especially, the reduction of traffic during the several periods of lockdown that have applied in these two years.