Spain's €1.006 Billion Road Maintenance Tender Suspended, Involving 29 Lots

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 1, the Directorate General of Roads under Spain's Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility suspended the tender process for national road maintenance and operation services, valued at €1.006 billion in total. The suspension stems from a special appeal filed by the Association of Infrastructure Maintenance and Operation Companies (ACEX) with the Central Administrative Court of Contractual Appeals (TACRC). The tender process will remain temporarily halted until the appeal is resolved.

The projects were initially authorized by the Spanish Council of Ministers on June 16, with a total investment of €1.006 billion excluding VAT, comprising 6 procurement packages and 29 lots covering the national road network across 10 autonomous communities and 20 provinces in Spain. The contracts involve approximately 3,670 kilometers of national roads, of which around 2,261 kilometers are highways. The base contract term is 3 years, extendable by 2 years, with an additional extension of up to 9 months.

The scope of work includes routine road maintenance, road availability assurance, winter road services, accident and emergency response, road operation support, safety studies, and road facility maintenance, as well as minor works. The tender also requires winning bidders to implement measures such as lighting energy efficiency, self-generated power, and electric vehicle applications, and to submit a decarbonization plan within 6 months prior to contract implementation.

ACEX believes that the evaluation mechanism in the new tender documents places excessive weight on price factors, restricts competition among companies, and may violate Spain's Public Sector Contracts Law. The association has therefore filed a comprehensive appeal against the relevant tender documents. After accepting the case, TACRC imposed interim suspension measures, and no final ruling has yet been made on the substantive content of the appeal.

The affected projects are distributed across Catalonia, Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Aragon, Valencia, Madrid, La Rioja, Asturias, Galicia, and Andalusia. The originally planned 29 lots involve sections of highways and national roads including A-1, A-11, and A-66.

The Spanish Confederation of Freight Transport (CETM) subsequently urged the government to resolve the tender suspension as soon as possible. CETM stated that disputes between the road maintenance industry and the government over procurement procedures should be addressed through the appropriate legal channels, but road users and freight companies should not be left waiting indefinitely for the commencement of the relevant maintenance works.