AS455 - FRAMEWORK CONVENTIONS SIGNED WITH ANAS S.P.A. BY HOLDERS OF MOTORWAY CONCESSIONS
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
MOTORWAY CONCESSIONS: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY SAYS RECENT RULE CHANGES RESTRICT COMPETITION IN INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT AND PENALIZE CONSUMERS
Report to Government e Parliament urges review of toll and concession mechanisms on stretches not yet built and on any new motorways
Recent changes to the rules governing motorway concessions restrict the already meagre room for competition in the management of motorway infrastructure. So says the Italian Competition Authority in a submission to the Government and to Parliament.
In its report, approved on 3 July 2008, the Antitrust Authority asks the Government and Parliament to re-examine the rules that have just been put into effect. The already limited room left for market competition must not be eliminated entirely, at least for those stretches of motorway that have not yet been built and for extensions to the network. In the Authority's view, it is also necessary to maintain a toll system that provides incentives to minimize costs and that transfers the benefits of increased efficiency to the end users.
In its report, the Authority analyses the provisions of Law no. 101 of 6 June 2008, approved with the conversion of decree-law no. 59/2008, which legally implements the framework conventions between ANAS and the companies holding motorway concessions that had already been signed at the time the decree came into force.
In particular, as regards the convention signed by ANAS and Società Autostrade per l’Italia SpA, the main national operator, the Authority points out that, based on the new law, the building and management of new stretches of motorway are once again sheltered from the competitive pressure which would result from new procedures open to public scrutiny. A series of interventions assigned to the company holding the concession, consisting of new works and stretches of motorway and, more generally, extensions to the network, will in fact be subject to economic regulation based on the same single convention.
The convention, furthermore, stipulates annual increases in tolls, for the whole duration of the convention (running from 1 January 2008 until 31 December 2038), of 70% of the effective inflation rate recorded by ISTAT. This means abandoning the previous mechanism that, by linking tolls to increases in productivity and improvements in quality of service (as well as forecast inflation), encouraged efficiency and could potentially result in lower tolls for consumers.
Rome, 5 July 2008