EU transport minister are discussing ammendments to the “Eurovignette Directive” today.
Among other things they’ll be talking about a nearly 15-year-old proposal:
europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAct … anguage=en
and few interesting points in it:
- It is now proposed to further clarify that tolls may not exceed the costs of constructing, operating and developing the infrastructure (eg. the bridge) on which the toll is levied,
- Member States should, however, be free to introduce a surcharge of up to ECU 0.03 to recover environmental and other external costs.
- The Commission recognises that transport problems (congestion, pollution) can be dramatically more serious in certain cases and proposes to cater for such “sensitive routes” in the current proposal. A Member State may introduce an additional surcharge on sensitive routes of up to a ECU 0.5 per kilometre. On sensitive routes where no tolls are charged, Member States may
impose a specific daily charged up to a maximum daily rate of ECU 15.
What proposals will be given green light, any bets?
(clue(?): D, A, CZ are strongly in favour of toll enviro surcharge for LGVs…)