On Friday 18 December, the ambassadors of the Member States to the EU (Coreper) approved the EU Council’s negotiating mandate on the revision of the Eurovignette Directive concerning taxation of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructure.
At the beginning of the month, the text received the green light from 26 of the 27 European Transport Ministers (see EUROPE 12618/12). Only Austria was formally opposed to it.
The adopted negotiating mandate corresponds to the third text presented by the German Presidency (see EUROPE 12613/14). The three previous Presidencies - Romanian, Finnish and Croatian - have also made a major contribution to this compromise, which is now quite far removed from the proposal presented by the Commission in 2017.
The main objective of this proposal was to better price road-related externalities and, gradually, to end time-based user charges (vignettes) and to only set prices according to the distance travelled, thus respecting the “polluter pays” principle.
However, the idea of banning the use of vignettes was abandoned by the EU Council, which feared that it would deter some from implementing any taxation at all. Especially those countries with low density and long road networks with little traffic, for which collection rates would have been extremely high.
Compulsory modulation
In response, the EU Council introduced a provision requiring Member States to modulate charges based on CO2 emissions for heavy goods vehicles.
The aim would be to classify these heavy goods vehicles based on their emissions at the time of their market authorisation and to introduce reductions in tolls or vignettes for the most efficient vehicles. However, the text allows those who wish to do so to also retain the modulation linked to the EURO standard.
Furthermore, the EU Council has retained, with a few exceptions, the Commission’s proposal to make all heavy goods vehicles - including those over 3.5 tonnes - subject to charges after a certain time. The option to apply a higher mark-up to the infrastructure charge levied on heavily congested road sections has also been introduced. These two amendments have been adjusted recently (see EUROPE 12613/14).
A position “very far removed” from that of Parliament
It is therefore on the basis of this text that the EU Council will negotiate with Parliament. The negotiations are likely to be delicate, as the position of the Member States is now “far removed” from that of MEPs (see EUROPE 12026/12), as the chair of Parliament’s Transport Committee, Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France), pointed out.
“We absolutely must have road pricing that reflects damage to the environment, which is why we, the European Parliament, voted to end the vignette system in order to have a toll system for lorries and vans”, commented the MEP.
Consult the EU Council’s position: https://bit.ly/3mANZzk (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)