The Generalitat has taken the necessary legal steps to begin the recovery of the C-25 concession -the Eix Transversal- in the hands of the company Cedinsa with the aim of achieving savings of up to 810 million euros by 2040. The operation financial support is based on recourse to the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) for a value of 482 million. According to sources from the Ministry of the Economy and Hisenda led by Jaume Giró, there is already a verbal agreement with the Government so that it can dispose of these resources, a part of the 2021 FLA not provided by the Generalitat.
The impact on the deficit of the Generalitat this year will be 128 million, since the reversal of the contract implies a saving of 354 million in the planned payments to Cedinsa until the end of the concession. From the point of view of the treasury, a cash outflow of 450 million is expected by discounting the compensatory amount of 32 million from a credit arranged by Cedinsa.
The anticipated resolution of the concession was part of the specifications of the contest tendered at the time and is stated in the concession contract, according to the same sources, which granted different “windows” for the reversion of the management of the road to the Generalitat. Economy had been studying the exercise of this option for months and after receiving favorable opinions from Airef and the Garrigues and RocaJunyent law firms, it decided to go ahead. The savings for the public coffers is 810 million, according to Economy calculations.
The concessionaire, now in the hands of a group of funds that bought the debt from the banks and later capitalized the company, will present a battle. But that, according to the sources consulted, will not stop anything. The execution has already begun and, as of yesterday, Cedinsa has ten days to present allegations. Everything will go forward until it acquires firmness in the administrative channel before the end of the year. Afterwards, predictably, the concessionaire will go to the administrative litigation route, not with the aim of recovering the management, but to receive a higher compensation.
For Economy, which recently boasted of being on the verge of recovering the investment grade in two risk rating agencies, continues to resort to the FLA, in the absence of the formalization of the verbal agreement. The Eix Transversal, a non-financial asset that belongs to the Catalan autonomous community, will go from being a shadow toll -in which a third party manages its maintenance and charges based on traffic- to be one more of its own roads in charge of the budgets of the Generalitat.
The change is minimal, in that sense, and there is no progress in the tendency for those who use the roads and pollute to pay directly for it. This, in any case, is a decision that does not correspond to Economy, which has limited itself to taking advantage of the moment to carry out what, they say, is the largest financial operation of the Generalitat in ten years.
4
