EU's road toll blues

  • 2005-04-27
  • From wire reports
TALLINN - European transport ministers have agreed on the calculation of common rules of the road tax for heavy vehicles. Estonia, along with a few other peripheral member countries, voted against more expensive freight carriage but remained in the minority.


The business daily Aripaev reported that a ministerial-level meeting of the transport, telecommunications and energy council in Luxembourg on April 21 put the finishing touches to a bill regulating an EU-wide road-toll system. In substance, it is a framework agreement laying down the principles of road toll calculation and collection.

Besides Estonia, Malta, Belgium and Portugal said the bill hurt their interests. Most ministers representing Central and East European countries, however, reached a political agreement that is justified by the need to reduce road loads and protect the environment.

Finland and Greece did not take part in the voting, which essentially amounts to a vote against.

Anti Moppel, adviser at the Economic Affairs and Communications Ministry, said the agreement was discriminating against peripheral countries of Europe and damaged these countries' road shipment companies as well as their imports and exports.

The adviser said that the bill diluted the authority of the European Commission to check whether the road tolls established by member countries were justified.

Estonia did not agree that it should be possible to take into account road construction expenses of the past thirty years in the calculation of the toll. o