Private sector involvement in developing and managing highway infrastructure in Spain dates to 1960. At that time, the concession for the Guadarrama Tunnel was granted, based on legislation passed in 1953 allowing private entities to construct tollways for a maximum term of 75 years. New legislation was passed in 1960 to grant the public sector more flexibility in concession arrangements to improve their attractiveness to the private sector. Two concessions were quickly granted under this framework: the Cadiz Bay Bridge, toll-free since 1982, and the Cadi Tunnel, now operated by the Autonomous Community of Catalonia.*' In 1964, Spain developed a plan for a National Expressway System, which projected the construction of about 3,000 kilometers (km) (1,864 miles (mi)) of expressways by 1980. Subsequently, several concessions were established to begin development of this system. To facilitate rapid construction, specific legislation was passed
for each concession, and in many cases, beneficial terms were granted to the private developers.(b)
In 1972, Spain recognized the need for a general legal and regulatory framework to serve as the foundation for future concession arrangements. Building on its own experience as well as that of other countries, Spain passed Law 8/1972 to provide this basis. It served this purpose until 2003, when Law 13/2003 modified the original framework to accommodate contemporary circumstances and practices such as the clarification of the allocation of concession risks. Law 30/2007 was also enacted recently to address all public sector contracts, but it has a section for contracts for public works concessions.
Similar to Portugal, the resurgence of PPP activity in Spain is driven by EU convergence criteria. The other principal driver cited was that the nation's infrastructure requirements exceed its public funding capacity. One public official's opinion on PPPs is that these arrange- ments are primarily tools to develop infrastructure, and the approach is no better or worse than any other.