The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, announced this Tuesday that the package of support measures for those affected by the Urda (Toledo) accident now includes the setting of limits on the fares of alternative means of transport to the train while the Madrid-Andalusia High-Speed line remains interrupted, as well as on accommodation services linked to the affected trips.
According to the Transport minister, in the hours after the accident price increases were detected that he described as "tremendous". "Now, a few days later, we are seeing even prices that have multiplied by eight and by nine compared with the dates before the accident. And that, evidently, is not acceptable", Puente denounced at the press conference after the Council of Ministers.
The Royal Decree-Law to support the victims of the railway accident in Urda (Toledo), with an allocation of 30 million euros, authorizes the Executive to intervene temporarily in prices and services in emergency contexts in order "to avoid abusive increases that harm consumers, such as those seen in the case of this accident".
The purpose of this tool is to prevent the impact of the accident from being worsened by price increases that make access to essential goods and services difficult. To this end, a system of temporary limitation of maximum prices is established during the validity of an emergency situation that significantly alters the conditions of supply and demand in a specific market, with the purpose of safeguarding equity, transparency and citizens' trust in the functioning of the market.
The cap mechanism consists of setting as a reference a maximum price equivalent to that applied in a previous period, following an objective and verifiable criterion, in order to prevent increases that could seriously harm consumers and users at a time of special vulnerability.
Puente also recalled that Parliament had already rejected a similar initiative with the votes against of Partido Popular, Vox and Junts. "If today we find ourselves in the need to devise a mechanism it is because we do not have it, and we do not have it because Parliament rejected it", the minister stressed.