By Henrietta Billings - 30th June 2004
National capitals may have to guarantee minimum standards for Europe's highways in a bid to break a deadlock over EU road toll proposals, Dutch transport minister Karla Peijs has told EUpolitix.com.
The new Dutch EU presidency acknowledges that the controversial dossier of transport legislation is very "sensitive" and that finding a consensus on five-year old proposals would be tricky.
"It will be very difficult to reach an agreement because opinions differ enormously between the two sides," she told this website.
Peijs agrees with the European Commission's preference for ear-marking the revenue from the tolls for highway maintenance - the most divisive issue in the proposals.
"My preference would be that we should ear-mark the revenue because I think it's very difficult to ask a transport company to pay a lot of money to drive on the road and then not complain if the roads are a mess," she said.
Several countries back EU transport chief Loyola de Palacio's view that the money raised from the tolls should be re-invested in transport infrastructure.
But a hard core of countries including Germany, UK, France, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, and Sweden remain steadfastly opposed, and are fiercely guarding their right to allocate financial resources as they see fit.
"Maybe we can find an agreement by saying to governments they can take the money and spend how they please, as long as they guarantee a certain level of maintenance," she said.
"We won't interfere with how they spend the money, but we would say that if you have a road you pay for, the driver has a right to expect a minimum level of maintenance."
Under the so-called 'Eurovignette' plans, Brussels is seeking to align national toll and road charge systems for lorries using a 'polluter-pays' principle where drivers would pay for the infrastructure they use.
Progress had been made in a number of areas including the level of tolls and mark ups for trucks travelling through environmentally sensitive and urban areas.
But the outstanding issue on this dossier remains the ear-marking of revenue collected from the tolls.
With 25 EU capitals split fifty- fifty on the issue it was impossible to reach an agreement at the last Luxembourg meeting of transport ministers in June.
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