Eurovignettes plan heading for rough ride

Date: 26/09/1996

By Michael Mann

TRANSPORT Commissioner Neil Kinnock's first major attempt to build environmental costs into transport pricing will come up against a serious hurdle next week.

EU transport ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday (3 October) are not expected to make much progress in their deliberations on the proposed changes to the Eurovignette system.

The proposal, adopted by the European Commission in July, aims to redesign the system of commercial road charges for those countries using the scheme to encourage hauliers to use the “cleanest” types of lorry.

But before they get down to discussing the details of Kinnock's plan, ministers will dispute the Commission's attempt to push the scheme through as a purely transport matter, allowing it to be decided by qualified majority vote.

Most member states insist that the plan should be voted on under Article 99 of the EU treaty, which covers taxation measures and must be agreed by unanimity.

A majority - even among those who favour the principle of the Eurovignette - will also question the Commission's competence to propose a maximum rate for vehicle taxes.

“It is one thing to propose the minimum level of tax which should apply, but maximum levels should be left up to us,” said a member state official.

Beyond this expression of basic principles, ministers are expected to hold only a general debate at what promises to be an extremely low-key meeting.

Initial discussion by member state officials has, however, revealed where most governments stand. Germany, which will be at the crossroads of the Union after the next enlargement, is keen to see even higher road charges than those suggested by the Commission.

Most other member states have a number of minor grumbles, except for the Austrians and Swedes, who are believed to be content with the basic outline.

Some governments feel it is premature to be looking at this measure in isolation when a more general debate on 'internalising' external costs is at a very early stage.

Kinnock was forced into redesigning the Eurovignette after the European Court of Justice annulled the Union's original legislation last year, ruling that the Council of Ministers had made significant changes to the plan without consulting the European Parliament properly.

The new proposals foresee raising the cost of a year's road use from 1,250 ecu to a maximum of 2,000 ecu. But operators using the cleanest 'Euro 2' trucks with the most favourable axle weights could see annual charges fall as low as 750 ecu.

Member states would also be permitted to introduce supplementary charges for specially-designated “sensitive” road corridors, although one member state official claimed “the rationale for defining such corridors has not been terribly well developed”.

At the moment, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and Denmark apply the scheme. They will be joined by Sweden at the start of 1997.

But international hauliers in countries such as the UK are unhappy with the system, claiming they are penalised twice by paying high excise duties in their own country and then having to pay for the Eurovignette when they operate on the continent.

Henk Kramer of the Dutch Transport Operators Association believes the Commission should hold back on the proposal until it has completed consultations on its recent Green Paper. He claims the complexity of the updated scheme will inevitably cause unnecessary administrative headaches.

The association calculates that in the Netherlands, the government collects more than twice as much in traffic-related taxes as it spends on road infrastructure.

“Will the extra money raised be used for better roads and to decrease other costs on commercial road users? If the Commission thinks this will automatically bring a shift to rail use, it is mistaken. What type of transport we use does not just depend on price, but on quality and accessibility,” argues Kramer.