EU Transport Chiefs End Deadlock on Truck Tolls
Date: 22-Apr-05
Country: LUXEMBOURG
Author: Jeff Mason
The measures, which aim to ease congestion, reduce pollution and promote the development of transport infrastructure, would widen the scope of so-called "eurovignette" charges to cover heavy goods vehicles weighing 3.5 tonnes or more. They had previously applied to lorries weighing 12 tonnes or more.
Member states would also be able to levy tolls on roads other than motorways and could vary charges based on the size, weight and environmental performance of the vehicle and on the time of day or the day of the week.
Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot told a news conference the deal would help "win the battle against congestion" while fighting pollution and unfair competition.
The executive European Commission first proposed the law in mid-2003 but ministers have been split over what should be done with revenues from the tolls and other disputes.
Thursday's agreement recommends that revenues be ploughed back into transport networks but does not make that compulsory except in certain cases.
The International Road Transport Union said in a statement it was "frustrated" the agreement did not require that toll revenues be invested into roads.
"If Europe is serious about reducing its growing congestion, it needs to make up for decades of underinvestment in its road infrastructure," it said.
The European Parliament must still approve the new rules. Britain, which takes over the EU presidency from July, will try to reach an agreement between parliamentarians and ministers before the end of 2005, a British official said.
ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS
The European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), called on the parliament to ensure EU states could factor the costs of environmental and health damage into tolls and criticised ministers' failure to include that in the bill.
"Member states must be allowed to use tolls to recoup the 170-billion-euro cost of environmental and health damage caused by lorries," T&E director Jos Dings said in a statement.
Barrot said he was optimistic an agreement with lawmakers could be reached.
Debate over the eurovignette rules pitted EU states on the bloc's geographical periphery against central transit states that bear most of the burden of goods traffic across Europe.
Malta, Estonia and Portugal opposed the proposal on concerns that higher transport costs would raise prices, an EU official said. Belgium also voted against, while Greece and Finland abstained, she said. Nineteen countries supported the rules.
One aspect of the measures, especially sensitive to Alpine nations, allows an increase or "mark up" in tolls in mountainous regions, though that revenue must be reinvested into transport routes that are alternatives to roads.
Austria, for example, may charge an extra 25 percent on lorries crossing its Brenner pass to Italy, creating revenue to fund a multibillion-euro railway tunnel it wants to build, one official said.
