'Shift tax away from trucks and on to tolls' Palacio
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by Karen Miles Hauliers will face higher tolls but lower road taxes if the new European Commissioner for Transport gets her way, Loyola de Palacio plans to put pressure on the European Union's 15 member states to shift the tax burden for truck operators away from fuel and vehicle excise duties and towards a co-ordinated policy of road tolls.
De Palacio, who took over the top transport job at Brussels from Britain's Neil Kinnock last month, is likely to seize on moves by Germany, Switzerland and Austria to introduce truck tolls on their main roads in 2002.
The Spanish conservative will also point Out that UK operators are suffering penalising fuel and vehicle excise duties because of Europe's distorted road taxes. Tolls would force foreign hauliers to pay their share for using UK roads.
"We will say that these charges are
distorting competition and will be arguing that a shift in fiscal policy could iron it out," says an EC official.
But EC officials believe European road costs could rise relative to rail because of the lower levels of social and environmental damage inflicted by rail freight.
On the contentious issue of countries conceding some of their sovereignty on taxation, de Palacio will argue that the EU's finance and transport leaders already have agreements on minimum levels of fuel and vehicle excise duties.
She will say that they should work together again to produce environmental benefits and more efficient road and rail freight, Later she hopes to turn her attention to cars.
The UK Government is bound to resist axing the vehicle excise and fuel dirties that will bring in £24bn this year, but pressure from other EU states could force the UK to fall into line.
De Palacio wants to introduce EU-wide flexible trunk road tolls in a bid to discourage the most road-damaging trucks and those with the dirtiest engines. She will also raise the issue of time-sensitive tolls, encouraging hauliers to use main roads at off-peak times.
Governments could agree toll levels and use such a policy to discourage particularly polluting trucks, for example, away from urban centres.
De Palacio attended her first Transport Minister's meeting yesterday (Wednesday); she was expected to tell ministers that she wants to increase rail's share of the freight market to 300/0.
The Transport Ministers were also expected to discuss EC plans to regulate weekend lorry bans across the EU.