The European Parliament on 15 December gave its green light to a directive which aims to harmonise the way truck tolls are levied on EU roads and motorways. The bill is expected to receive quick final approval from EU ministers since the version voted on by Parliament had previously been negotiated in an "informal trialog" with the Commission and the Council.
Called "Eurovignette", the directive seeks to better reflect the growing impact of road freight on the environment and society at large. After heated discussions, it was finally agreed that these 'external costs' can include congestion costs, environmental costs, noise, landscape damage, social costs such as health and indirect accident costs which are not covered by insurance. To be internalised, the costs have to be proved "undeniable".
The Commission ended a dispute between Parliament and Council on how precisely to integrate such costs in toll prices by promising to come forward with a calculation method two years after the directive comes into force. This proposal will again need approval from the two EU legislative bodies.
As of 2012, Eurovignette will apply to vehicles of 3.5 tonnes or more, a significantly lower threshold compared to the previous version of the directive (dated 1999), which only applied to vehicles of more than 12 tonnes. However, the compromise allows room for derogations under strict conditions.
Member states are also given extra flexibility on how to levy tolls or charges. In particular, these can now be raised on the entire road network, not just motorways, when they are part of the Trans-European Network (TEN):
- toll revenue should be used for the maintenance of the road infrastructure concerned or to cross-finance the transport sector as a whole
- as of 2010, countries which already apply tolls or user charges will be obliged to vary their prices according to vehicle pollution standards (Euro standards series) in order to favour the cleanest ones
- authorities may decide to exempt isolated areas or economically weak regions from applying tolls or user charges
- an extra 15% 'mark-up' charge can be levied to finance new alternative transport infrastructure projects such as rail or inland waterways (the mark-up can be raised to 25% for cross-frontier projects in mountainous regions)
- urban areas are finally not included in these extra mark-up charges. However, local authorities can still be raise them under a provision taken from article 9 of the current Eurovignette directive (which for instance allowed the city of London to apply such charges)
- rebates will be possible for frequent users
