Tolls v cash aid trade-off sought
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COMMON MARKET authorities are seeking a relaxation in the tolls and taxes faced by trucks crossing Austria as a trade-off against EEC cosh aid for the construction of transit motorways.
Confirmation that this bargaining ploy Is being used by Brussels was given by Irish Foreign Minister Peter Barry, speaking at the September session of the European Parliament In Strasbourg.
Answering questions on talks which have been underway since 1982 on possible EEC help toward the Innkreis/Pyhrn motorway, Mr Barry said the Community would "seek solutions with Austria making it possible to eliminate discrimination as regards taxes and tolls paid by Community hauliers."
In a new round of talks due to take place this autumn, the Community would seek "a better balance" between the vehicle taxation systems in the Community and Austria.
Meanwhile, a major programme designed to switch international lorries from the roads to travel piggy-back on the railways is getting underway in Austria this autumn.
The scheme, announced in the summer, is intended to save Austria's road system from the pounding it now receives by nearly two million foreign lorries which cross the country each year en route for Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia.
Foreign haulage firms are now being persuaded to put their vehicles on low-loader transit trains, and the Austrians hope that within two years they will be carrying about 10 per cent of the international ton nage that now goes by road.
The scheme has now been worked out with the West German, Italian and Yugoslav railway authorities, and starts with the introduction of the autumn timetables.
There will be a daily service. Vehicles going South can be loaded at Regensburg in Southern Germany and taken to Graz, near the Yugoslav frontier. There will also be a daily service from Munich to Ljubljana in Yugoslavia.
Starting next year, four pairs of trains will run services across the Brenner Pass. The pick-up point in Germany is Munich, The Austrian authorities claim the trains will be quicker and more efficient. But they threaten that if hauliers boycott the scheme, legal measures could be introduced to compel lorries to use the trains.