On Thursday 24 May, the European Parliament’s transport committee voted by a wide majority in favour of the draft report by Christine Revault d’Allonnes Bonnefoy (S&D, France) revising the ‘Eurovignette’ directive (1999/62/CE).
The MEPs, called for replacement of the vignette system on 1 January 2023 with a toll system for heavy-duty and light vans for infrastructure for which a charge is made.
At a press conference, Revault d’Allonnes Bonnfoir said the vote was satisfactory because virtually all the compromises were adopted.
The question of light vehicles was one of the points of uncertainty for the vote, as EUROPE reported at the time of finalisation of the agreement among the negotiators in Parliament (see EUROPE 12021), on this text which is part of the first mobility package (see EUROPE 11799). Some MEPs, notably from Germany and Austria, were not very eager to apply a similar system for both heavy and light vehicles.
Revault d’Allonnes Bonnefoy suggested moving from a vignette based on time to an infrastructure toll system based on distance in line with the user-payer principle for private cars from 2026 onwards, but compromise to this end was not approved by the MEPs due to insufficient voting discipline.
On the other hand, the end of the vignette system for all light vehicles, including private cars, was approved for 31 December 2025, which should encourage the member states to set up toll systems for these vehicles.
But while the former compromise amendment was not endorsed, non-commercial light vehicles (minibuses) should, according to the Parliament’s position, be covered by this transfer from vignettes to a toll system in 2023. Such a transfer was approved in fact for heavy-dutyvehicles and vans intended for the carriage of goods from 1 January 2023.
An amendment drawn up by Green/EFA MEPs Karima Delli (France), chair of Parliament’s transport committee, and Michael Cramer (Germany) calling for a convergence of the systems for heavy-duty vehicles and light vans intended for non-commercial use on 1 January 2023 was unexpectedly approved.
Extension of the system to motorcycles, as envisaged in the first draft report (see EUROPE 11940), was preserved.
Application of external cost charges to all vehicles. Otherwise, most points of the agreement between the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs were voted through, notably the one concerning charges for external costs (due to air and noise pollution), based on the polluter-pays principle, or the introduction of congestion charges.
The rapporteur’s amendment aiming to apply the external cost charge on all sections covered by infrastructure tolls to all vehicles from 2026 was also approved.
The idea of setting up a European Road Transport Agency was also validated.
The decision to vote through this report will be very important, added Revault d’Allonnes Bonnefoy, who hoped it would send a strong signal to the Council.
On the other hand, notably due to opposition from the EPP group, the possibility of applying the measures mentioned in the agreement to secondary roads onto which Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) traffic could be deviated, was rejected.
Following the vote, MEPs from Parliament’s transport committee granted Revault d’Allonnes Bonnefoy a mandate for the trialogue inter-institutional negotiations with the Council of the EU. Since discussions on this text have not progressed at the Council’s working group, it is too soon for such negotiations to be envisaged. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)