German toll draws fire from critics
Print Edition
GERMANY’S parliament approved a motorway toll yesterday of up to 130 euros (US$141) per year from 2016 that critics argue unfairly targets foreigners and may violate European Union laws.
A prolonged debate about the toll, which the center-left Social Democrats had firmly rejected in the 2013 election campaign, exposed frictions in their grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.
German drivers would also pay the toll but would be compensated with a corresponding reduction in existing automobile taxes, which critics inside and outside the ruling grand coalition say contravenes EU rules.
“This measure conforms with European law — it’s high time you all believed that,” Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt told members of parliament during a debate before the measure passed.
The toll was a project of Dobrindt and his Bavarian Christian Social Union party, though Merkel’s bigger Christian Democrat sister party and the Social Democrat Party were long sceptical.
Merkel and the SPD agreed to the measure provided it conformed with EU rules that bar discrimination against foreigners.
The European Court of Justice will also examine the law.
Dobrindt argued that the new motorway toll will generate some 500 million euros for the state each year, which would be invested in transport infrastructure. Foreign motorists would be able to buy short-term passes costing between 5 and 30 euros for 10-day to two-month periods.
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