New T1R toll threats on autobahns
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• West Germany may introduce road tolls for all lorries, both foreign and national.
Federal transport minister Juergen Wanike has told the newspaper Die Welt this week that the charges should vary according to the use vehicles make of the road system. His aim is to make foreign lorries pay more towards financing road building and maintenance.
At present, claims Wamke, foreign lorries contribute only 9% of the costs they incur, compared with 70% from German HGVs. "So far foreign lorries have made free use of our roads and the only financial contribution they make is via fuel taxes," he says. "It would be easy, via a European data centre, to calculate the tonnes/ kilometres ratio per vehicle and impose charges on this basis."
The minister claims that Germany has no other choice as other EEC countries refuse to scrap road tolls, and there is no sign that competition in the EEC can be made fairer through fiscal harmonisation.
"The German tax payer cannot continue to subsidise these foreign lorries," says Wamke, adding that detailed plans will be worked out by next spring.
His warning, which comes just before the next meeting of EEC transport ministers in Brussels on 7-8 December, is intended to put pressure on other EEC governments to move more rapidly towards the harmonisation of taxation in the field of road transport. The Germans have made this the price for agreeing to another 40% jump next year in the EEC quota.