Deadlines to be agreed for tolls on Union’s road users

Date: 26/11/1998

By Renée Cordes

EU GOVERNMENTS are likely to set deadlines next week for making road users across the Union pay the real cost of their journeys, including the damage caused to the environment.

However, poorer member states are set to rebuff French and Austrian demands for EU-wide rules to govern transport workers' wages and working conditions, amid fears that this could inflate the cost of road travel.

Transport ministers are set to agree to introduce Union-wide road tolls by 1999 or 2000 at their meeting next Monday (30 November). The tolls, which would be levied on the basis of kilometres travelled, would help to pay for environmental damage caused by lorry traffic.

Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock has called for the gradual introduction of uniform road charges across the Union based on the real cost of transport, arguing that basing levies on the distance travelled would help reduce pollution and congestion.

At next week's meeting, France and Austria will also press their demands for an agreement to harmonise transport sector wages and social benefits across the EU.

They argue that this should be considered as part of a strategy to protect the environment as an increase in social costs would help divert some lorry traffic away from roads. While Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland accept the need to cut road pollution, they argue the French and Austrian plan goes too far. All four, who rely heavily on lorries and trucks, have bristled at repeated attempts by the Commission to introduce new road charges.

"We want to get rich first and then worry about the environment," said an official. "The French are saying that social harmonisation could improve the competitiveness of environmentally friendly transport roads, but that does not make sense."

A Commission official downplayed poorer countries' fears of increased prices for road travel, saying the EU would take member states' varying economic situations into account before raising costs across the board.

See also Section 14.3.