On Thursday 31 October, the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union submitted to national delegations a second draft compromise, of which EUROPE has obtained a copy, on the revision of the Directive on road infrastructure user charges (1999/62/EC).
This new text contains major changes compared to the first draft compromise tabled on 11 September by the Finnish Presidency (see EUROPE 12326/13).
Among these, it is now suggested that tolls and user charges (of the ‘vignette’ type) for different vehicle categories can be introduced or maintained independently of one another.
The vignette system – which allows vehicles to use toll roads for a given time – would therefore continue to be authorised, including for heavy duty vehicles (heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches with a maximum authorised mass exceeding 3.5 tonnes), which is totally contrary to the European Commission's original proposal (see EUROPE 11799/6).
According to this text, up to 4 years after the entry into force of the Directive, a Member State could also decide to apply user charges or tolls only to heavy goods vehicles with a maximum authorised weight of 12 tonnes or more.
However, this choice to restrict user charges or tolls to this category of heavy goods vehicle alone should be justified, for example, by the fact that an extension to heavy goods vehicles of less than 12 tonnes would have significant adverse effects on traffic flow, the environment, noise levels, congestion, health or road safety as a result of traffic diversion.
The Finnish Presidency also proposes that, if a toll system applies to all heavy vehicles, Member States may choose to recover a different percentage of costs from buses and coaches on the one hand and heavy goods vehicles on the other.
In addition, while the provisions on the monthly, weekly and daily rates of the current user charges remain unchanged for heavy vehicles compared to the previous draft compromise (these rates must not exceed 10%, 5% and 2% of the annual rate respectively), those on the bimonthly, monthly and ten-day rates for passenger cars have, however, been amended. The Finnish Presidency therefore proposes that these rates should not exceed 33%, 20% and 10% of the annual rate respectively.
Finally, substantial changes are to be noted with regard to changes in the costs of infrastructure charges and user charges for heavy duty vehicles.
This second draft compromise will be examined by the national experts of the EU Council's Land Transport Working Group in 2 days’ time. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)