Resolution on the Commission’s approval of Germany’s revised plan to introduce a road toll

The European Parliament adopted by 510 votes to 126, with 55 abstentions, a resolution tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the Commission’s approval of Germany’s revised plan to introduce a road toll.

On 18 June 2015, the Commission launched an infringement procedure on the introduction by Germany of a new road charging scheme for private vehicles (‘Pkw-Maut’). The Commission put the infringement procedure on hold because it reached an agreement with Germany on 1 December 2016.

Members are of the opinion that the German road toll system (‘Pkw-Maut’) of December 2016 still contains elements that represent a breach of Union law and violate fundamental principles of the Treaties, in particular discrimination based on nationality.

Therefore, Parliament called on the Commission to provide all the legal and technical details of the agreement of 1 December 2016 between the President of the Commission and the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, and clarify all relevant legal and political aspects regarding why the agreement, which still does not impose an additional burden on German users and thus maintains an indirect discrimination based on nationality, has been considered as a sufficient basis to put on hold the infringement procedure against Germany.

Members underlined that a key requirement for non-discriminatory road charges is that all users pay the same charge for using the same roads. They stressed that any national road charging system that directly discriminates on grounds of nationality or is combined with national tax measures to the benefit only of nationals, e.g. a deduction from the national vehicle tax, thus pursuing the objective of primarily charging foreign users, constitutes a violation of the non-discrimination principle enshrined in Article 18 of the TFEU.

Parliament stressed the need for common rules to establish a coherent, fair, non-discriminatory and harmonised framework for road charging systems for all types of vehicles in the European Union. It urged the Commission to consider the revision of the legislation and harmonised framework regarding the Eurovignette and the European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) as an opportunity to establish such a framework and to monitor and boost proper enforcement of this legislation.