The full LKW Maut will now not start until the begining of 2006 but with a ‘light version’ starting at the begining of 2005.
The Toll Collect consortium submitted new dates to the transport minister on Tuesday. Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder welcomed the new schedule. Such a stage solution is justifiable, said Schroeder in Magdeburg. It makes sense to begin with a first version.
Federal Minister of Transport Manfred Stolpe wants to negotiate still further with Toll Collect.
Toll Collect has doubts about their own schedule for the introduction of the Maut reported the Saarbruecker newspaper. Stolpe must examine the offer further, said its speaker in Berlin. In the next meeting of traffic and budget committee on 11 February Stolpe will then present the result and will make an evaluation of possible alternatives Five “conceivable” alternatives are to be debated in the Ministry. Among them be the re-establishment of the Eurovignette, the conversion of the collection system with other partners and the Austrian model.
New penalties have been agreed against Toll Collect. Exceeding the new dates will result in the consortium paying monthly contractual penalties of 40 million euro in the first stage and 70 million in the second stage. At present they pay 7.5 million euro a month.
The late introduction of the toll means duty losses in the traffic budget of approximately 2.2 billion in the year 2004.