After postponing their decision until later in the evening (see EUROPE 12381/7), Member States’ transport ministers finally failed to reach a political agreement (‘general approach’) on Monday 2 December on the revision of the Directive on road infrastructure charges (1999/62/EC), known as the ‘Eurovignettes’ Directive.
“The Council [of the European Union] is not in a position to take a decision on this dossier”, Sanna Marin, Finnish Minister of Transport, had to acknowledge at the end of the meeting of ministers (‘Transport’ Council).
For her part, the new European Commissioner for Transport, Adina-Ioana Vălean, regretted that the Member States had not succeeded in reaching a general approach. She also assured that the European Commission would continue its work on this subject “in one way or another”.
Various reasons. The Member States that have constituted a blocking minority are Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy.
Germany seems to be opposed to the very nature of the Commission’s initial proposal (see EUROPE 11799/6). The German Minister explained that his country was against the ban on introducing a vignette system and against the obligation to end the existing vignette systems for heavy goods vehicles (over 3.5 tonnes) by 2023 for some Member States and by 2025 for others (dates proposed by the Finnish Council Presidency).
In addition, Germany considers that the Eurovignettes Directive does not allow Member States enough flexibility to define the type of vehicles that will travel on their roads.
Luxembourg, for its part, recommended that the compromise proposal should be returned to the level of the preparatory bodies for reasons not related to the substance, but to its “lack of technical maturity”. “Work on the special agreement has been accelerated and unfortunately rushed these last weeks”, said the Luxembourg Minister.
In particular, he regretted that, in the compromise tabled by Helsinki, light commercial vehicles were excluded from the scope of the text. (The Commission, for its part, proposed that vignette systems could be maintained until 31 December 2027 for this type of vehicle.)
Like Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Greece, Luxembourg appreciated Helsinki’s suggestion to maintain the existing time-based pricing systems (‘vignette’ type), which, according to these countries, guarantees the necessary flexibility for Member States.
However, these Member States have all requested clarification on the Finnish Presidency’s proposal to introduce an EU-wide mandatory tool to vary infrastructure charges and user fees for heavy-duty vehicles according to CO2 emissions.
According to the compromise suggested by Helsinki, this tool would be based on the new regulation setting CO2 emission performance standards for new heavy-duty vehicles and would replace the variation according to the ‘EURO’ emission class currently used.
Parliament is getting impatient.
For its part, the European Parliament wants a general approach to be found quickly, in order to start interinstitutional negotiations (‘trilogues’).
“It is essential to act now to address the climate emergency. Member States must therefore take a position on this text quickly, so that negotiations can start and measures can be taken as soon as possible”, said Karima Delli MEP (Greens/EFA, France), chair of Parliament’s Transport Committee.
In its position adopted at first reading on 25 October 2018 (see EUROPE 12125/2), Parliament defends in particular the end of the time-based road charging system (vignette type) for heavy goods vehicles and vans used for the transport of goods. Instead, MEPs want distance-based infrastructure charges (such as tolls) to be established, as they consider such a system to be more in line with the ‘polluter pays’ and ‘user pays’ principles.
MEPs also supported the mandatory introduction of external cost charges for air pollution and noise pollution on sections covered by tolls for all vehicles, including light vehicles.
Therefore, according to Parliament’s position, passenger cars would be subject to external cost charges, but there is no obligation to terminate the vignette system for this type of vehicle. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)