The secret agreement between the government and dealers to increase tolls
The state agreed in 2013 with the motorway companies increased 1.5% tolls to offset the increase in government fees.
This is an agreement that the state keeps secret for over a year, and for good reason: it's a political bomb. While the Minister of Ecology Segolene Royal said claim a rate freeze for 2015, a protocol initialed there a year expected to increase 1.5% tolls, spread over the period 2015-2018, which would be added conventional annual increases ...
Everything starts from the government's decision in late 2012 to impose motorway concessionaires an increase of 50% of the State fee, a tax that the companies perform in return for the use of public property. The annual yield of this tax is increased from 200 to 300 million euros.
But in late 2012, dealers will not let it happen. They argue, in support contracts, that tax increases must be offset. There followed several months of tense discussions, in parallel with negotiations on the motorway stimulus. Both subjects eventually be a global deal in 2013.
A memorandum of understanding was then signed between the dealers and the state, with two components: the impact on tolls to the increase of the State fee, and the motorway stimulus plan, 3.2 billion euros of work borne by dealers in exchange for an extension of three years on average concessions.
The recovery plan required the Brussels green light for the protocol to be officially signed. Got a green light last October. Therefore, nothing prevents an official signature. Especially since the dealers have already disbursed this year for the first time, a fee plus 50%. So they expect the promised compensation. According to the protocol, it must take the form of a rate increase over the period 2015-2018 smoothed, a 0.5% increase in February, 2015.
Not reverse
The problem for the government is that since the agreement remained secret but approved by the State Council, he himself has stirred controversy on the level of tolls and profits of the dealers, which makes it all now rising politically disastrous tolls. He must break this deadlock by renegotiating the protocol, as part of a global agreement on the profits of dealers (see above). And we must do this quickly because tolls are reviewed annually on February 1.
The state can unilaterally renege on the agreement, dealers attack litigation. They do not have a choice: give up the compensation clauses in the contracts would undermine the social interest of the company, with the risk of lawsuits from shareholders.
Meanwhile, the political posturing multiply. There are some days, the traditional mail notifying administration each year the Users' Committee the annual increase in tolls calculated by him was presented by Ségolène Royal as a proposal dealers against which it rebelled. Even as the dealers had not even been notified of the mail, they bitterly pointed out, and the formula is contractual ...