PP boosts financial aid to keep toll road operators from going broke

The Popular Party (PP) government is doing all it can to save the nation's toll road operators from going broke. In its latest attempt to help them with their troubled accounts, the Rajoy administration has introduced amendments to next year's budget that include financing guarantees for the private concessionaires, which, according to some estimates, have lost more than four billion euros.

The losses stem mainly from the overestimates in profits that were outlined in the contracts signed during the PP government of Prime Minister José María Aznar. Since the toll road operators began racking up losses, the previous Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been including amendments in the annual budgets that provide for direct aid to the companies and guarantees to help them renegotiate their debts with the banks.

Two years ago, the Socialist government granted a generous loan to the toll road operators to keep them from going bankrupt.

The PP's amendments to next year's budget will allow the operators to apply for a participating loan with the Public Works Ministry during the first part of 2013. Companies will be given a one-year grace period to pay back the interest on these credits. While the amendments propose extending these benefits until 2018, government officials have talked of prolonging the guarantees until 2021 -- although the banks are reportedly against this proposal.

These are just patches to cover up the holes" Socialist Rafael Simancas

In June, the Public Works Ministry reported that nine private toll road operators were "on the verge of bankruptcy" because of drastic drops in vehicle traffic and low toll-fee revenues.

Public Works Minister Ana Pastor promised in April that the government was setting aside some 280 million euros for loans to be handed out. The PP administration also wants to extend the compensation fund - set up during the Socialist administration - for road operators until 2021, which will allow them to balance their books in the short and medium term, Pastor explained.

Among the operators that have taken advantage of this fund and other financial assistance over the past few years are the managers of the Madrid spoke roads, the R-2, R-3, R-4 and R-5 highways, the toll highway to Barajas International Airport, and the Ocaña-La Roda and Alicante-Cartagena-Vera turnpikes.

The government anticipates that operators of the Santiago de Compostela-Ourense and the León-Astorga highways will also seek aid.

But according to Rafael Simancas, the Socialist spokesman for public works, these temporary financing measures are "just patches to cover up the holes without any real long-term solutions."

In Madrid, four operators have filed for protection from their creditors. Among them is Accesos de Madrid, which operates the R-3 and R-5 highways along with the construction firms Abertis, Sacyr and ACS, in the hopes of refinancing some 666 million euros of debt.

The poor toll road intakes have only added to the problems of the already troubled construction and banking sectors.