Until a firm decision was taken in the French National Assembly, the College of the Basque City Centre had to suspend the procedure for the establishment of the Low Emission Zone. The Assembly, the Republicans and the National Union approved on Tuesday the proposed amendments to remove the zones. Martine Bisaut, Vice-President for Climate Transition of the Basque Country, said that no action will be taken until it is known whether or not the measure will be implemented.

The implementation of the Low Emission Zone, approved by the Basque Country Council on June 1, has now been suspended. The area would affect 27 villages in Lapurdi and is expected to last from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. They have not called into question the decision to establish the zone, but have indicated that they will wait for a firm decision before spending. This has led to the suspension of the implementation of signals for the announcement of the area, with an expenditure of around 500,000 euros, and of the subsidies that will be offered to the citizens. The matter was to be discussed at Saturday’s conference, but they decided to remove it from the agenda.

Bisauta is outraged that the area has not been established: "I do not know if it is possible to have no Low Emission Zones in the French State, seeing that they exist in neighboring countries. It has also been installed in various parts of France." The arguments against the establishment of the zone are considered miserable by Bissau, according to the News.

The PS MP, Collette Capdeviell, blames both the right and the far right for rejecting the implementation and reveals that several MPs have proposed amendments to bring the measure into force. The President of the Basque Country supported the position of the PS Member.

Car = privilege?

The establishment of Low Emission Zones in Bilbao was strongly criticized by the Yellow Fever collective last July. He acknowledged that the theoretical objectives of these measures were “pollution and the fight against climate change”, but he recalled that the project has received criticism from the environmental movement.

On the one hand, it was criticized that the measure reinforces the "myth of the ecological car", that is, that some cars are considered clean. In fact, in the case of Bilbao, the non-emissions, the ECO and Type C levels have not been reduced. For Yellow Fever, the concepts of ‘auto’ and ‘ecological’ are incompatible.

On the other hand, they criticized the “classist tone” of the measure and asked the following question: “If the owner of an old car can get to the center of Bilbao by public transport, why can’t an executive who goes to the Iberdrola Tower do the same?”

The Yellow Fever made other proposals regarding the use of the car: the strengthening of public transport; the elimination of space for cars and the extension of areas for bicycles and pedestrians; and the reduction of access to cars according to necessity and not according to the economic capacity of the driver.