Europe's heavy lorries face new "green" tax

At stake is a review of an existing levy known as the "Eurovignette Directive" - Picture:AFP

After two years of tough talks on introducing a "polluter pays" principle on European Union motorways, a compromise looks possible when transport ministers from the 27-nation bloc gather in Luxembourg on Friday.

"The EU's (rotating) Belgian presidency is hopeful of reaching an agreement in principle on the subject," a European diplomat said.

"We're very keen to see a political agreement on Friday," a European Commission official said Wednesday.

At stake is a review of an existing levy known as the "Eurovignette Directive" which covers some 15,000 kilometres (9,300 miles) of motorways, allowing member states to set tolls at levels required to maintain and replace infrastructure.

The revised directive would for the first time add air and noise pollution costs in the calculation of the tax.

Levies that currently amount to an average 15-25 euro cents per kilometre would increase by 3-4 cents in case of an agreement.

A bid to include a time-of-day levy aimed at helping to ease road congestion has been dropped but under the current proposal, governments could increase taxes by as much as 300 percent at rush-hour to reduce heavy traffic flows.

The aim of the new tax is to encourage companies to switch from the roads to more environmentally friendly rail freight while the lorry companies would have an incentive to invest in less-polluting vehicles that would attract lower levies or even exemptions.

"We must send the right signals to operators so they change and adapt their travel behaviour," said Helen Kearns, spokeswoman for Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas.

Member states will be free to decide whether or not to adopt the new tax. If they do, then neighbouring states will likely have little choice but to follow suit or see their roads inundated with heavy lorries seeking to avoid the levy.

Debate over the proposal has been fiery, with nations such as Austria and France which experience a lot of transit traffic strongly in favour of the polluter pays tax against opposition from other states.

Such opposition has led to a watering-down of the original proposals. For example, there will be exceptions in certain conditions for trucks between 3.5 and 12 tonnes.

The European Parliament, which would need to vote on the proposal, could therefore consider the proposal to be too lax while road transport companies are already on the warpath.

"While road transport in Europe is already 20 to 40 percent more expensive than in the United States, the EU wants a new tax," said the International Road Transport Union (IRU).

"Making road transport more expensive will weaken Europe's competitivity (and) ... penalise its economy," the IRU said.