Road policing costs cannot be taken into account when calculating the level of tolls for the use of the trans-European road network by heavy goods vehicles, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Wednesday 28 October (C-321/19).
Two Polish road haulage companies in Germany are contesting the financial amounts they have had to pay for the use of German federal motorways. They contest the fact that the arrangements for calculating tolls include the costs relating to road policing, in breach of Directive 1999/62/EC on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures.
A German administrative court has ruled in favour of the Polish companies. It notes that the directive requires Member States introducing motorway tolls to take account only of infrastructure costs related to the construction, maintenance and operation of the network. However, in its view, the costs relating to road policing are the responsibility of the State acting in the exercise of its prerogatives as a public authority and not as an operator of the road infrastructure.
Moreover, the European Court is of the opinion that EU law precludes any cost overrun which would result from taking into account non-eligible costs. The judge also rejected Germany’s request to limit the effects of this judgment in time.
See the judgment: https://bit.ly/2HBPjmN (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)