MEPs threaten court action over delay to lorry tax plan

Date: 23/04/1998

By Myles Neligan

THE European Parliament is threatening to take legal action against the Council of Ministers for unacceptable delays in reaching agreement on a controversial proposal for EU-wide rules on tax rates for lorries.

Jean Pierre Bazin, chairman of the Parliament's transport committee, has written to British Minister Gavin Strang, whose government currently holds the EU presidency, warning him that the institution's legal experts are preparing a case against transport ministers.

MEPs allege that ministers have breached the terms of a 1993 European Court of Justice ruling which called on them to reach agreement "within a reasonable period" on the Eurovignette proposal, designed to harmonise the current patchwork of national rules governing road-use charges for commercial vehicles.

Euro MPs argue that the delay in agreeing a deal can no longer be considered reasonable. "The Council has lingered excessively on this issue and many of my colleagues are getting very annoyed," said the transport committee vice-chairman, Dutch Liberal Florus Wijzenbeek.

The ECJ is powerless to impose penalties on the Council in cases of this kind and could only appeal to member states yet again to reach agreement as quickly as possible if it ruled in the Parliament's favour.

But taking another institution to court is a rarely used and politically charged option.

"You cannot force 15 countries to reach agreement if they don't want to. But it is true that such a move would put the Council under strong political pressure to find a solution," said an official in the Council of Ministers' secretariat. "A court case would highlight a breakdown in Council proceedings, and could prove politically embarrassing," admitted another.

The Parliament's lawyers have agreed that there are grounds for legal action. But before MEPs can proceed, the transport and legal affairs committees must both vote in favour of taking ministers to court and forward a recommendation to that effect to Parliament President José María Gil-Robles.

In theory, the president has the power to drop the case at the last minute, but in practice he has always acted on the recommendation of the parliamentary committees.

MEPs say the transport committee is almost certain to recommend proceeding with the case, but the legal affairs committee is more wary. Its members include a number of Euro MPs from constituencies where the road haulage industry, which is fiercely opposed to the Eurovignette proposal, is strong. However, the general consensus is that legal action is more likely than not, with a final decision expected in June.

The Parliament is not alone in its frustration over the failure to settle the long-running dispute over Eurovignettes. The UK presidency, which had hoped to broker an acceptable compromise during its term in charge of EU business, now appears to have abandoned the struggle.

"We worked hard to break the deadlock at the last ministerial meeting, but in the event this proved impossible," said a spokeswoman.

Transport ministers are unlikely to discuss the measure again between now and 1 July, when Austria takes over the EU presidency, making agreement on the plan in the near future even more unlikely given that Vienna's objections to the current proposals are the biggest stumbling block in the way of a deal.

This is not the first time transport issues have resulted in legal battles between EU institutions. In 1983, the Parliament took the Council of Ministers to court for failing to reach agreement on a common European transport policy, and won its case two years later. A decade later, MEPs got an earlier ministerial decision on Eurovignettes annulled because they had not been consulted over amendments. The proposal currently under discussion was put forward by the European Commission in 1996, and goes well beyond the measure agreed by ministers in 1993.