The Council of Ministers has authorized the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility to grant extraordinary aid of 2.43 million euros to the Community of the Region of Pamplona to finance the discounts applied to collective public transport between July 1 and December 31, 2023. This aid is part of a line of special grants for municipalities and consortia that did not request in time and form the funds to compensate for the 50% rebates on subscriptions and multi-travel titles of urban and metropolitan transport, applied in 2023 and 2024.
The aid reverses in favor of the citizenship since the municipalities will not have to finance the entire discount from their budgets.
In this way, the Ministry continues to work with local entities to guarantee access to collective public transport on equal terms for all citizens, making the greatest effort in history in financing public transport. In this sense, the Ministry has contributed to the support and promotion of public transport with more than 2 billion euros per year in 2023 and 2024.
The objective of these subsidies is twofold: on the one hand, to promote the use of public transport in everyday mobility, as a safer and more sustainable way and, on the other, to reduce its cost to citizens at an extraordinary juncture in energy and fuel prices.
Royal Decree
Thus, through today’s approval, the Government of Spain provides a solution so that the Community of the Region of Pamplona can receive this grant.
This aid is part of a Royal Decree that also includes the municipalities of Zaragoza, Burgos, Mollet del Vallès, Arrasate-Mondragón, Oiartzun, Hernani, Zarautz, Algeciras and Puente Genil, for a total of 10.5 million extraordinary aid.
Transportation as a public service
In this way, the Government of Spain reinforces the maintenance of urban public transport with homogeneous quality standards throughout the national territory.
Regular public passenger transport has the character of an essential public service with a significant impact on the ordinary development both of the daily activities of citizens in various orders of their lives and of multiple economic, professional or social activities.
From the outset, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility opted for a support system that would allow families to meet the inflationary tensions caused by the Russian invasion in Ukraine, to allow them to maintain purchasing power and meet their daily mobility needs.
Hence, the Government provides financial support to local entities that provide urban public transport services and are applying discounts of at least 50% on the price of subscriptions and multi-trip tickets, excluding round trip tickets, from 1 January 2023 and, with the approval of Royal Decree-Law 8/2023 of 27 December, which adopts measures to address the economic and social consequences of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as to alleviate the effects of the drought, until 31 December 2024.
The Ministry therefore undertook to finance the 30% discount for local entities that would raise the sales to 50%. Thus, the remaining 20% would be paid out of their budgets.