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Green tolls * Europe - To add to fuel cost pressure on truck drivers
Proposals adopted by the Commission the 8 July, could see road haulage costs rise even further than they have already as a result of the hike in fuel prices.
Brussels,Belgium -EurActiv -9 July 2008: -- They aim to reduce the sector's negative impact on the environment, although green groups say the plans remain weak ... According to the Commission, the average extra cost per kilometre for a relatively clean truck would be 4-5 eurocents... Road haulage represents just one part of transport costs, which in turn represent only 1-9% of final product values, stresses the Commission... But the haulage sector strongly contests the Commission's reasoning. Pointing to studies that show that even a €1 per km road toll increase would only lead to a less than 1.22% shift of road transport volume to rail, Bertil Dahlin, president of the International Road Union's Goods Transport Liaison Committee, stressed: "The Eurovignette Directive will only make the EU less competitive, and is likely to cause even further delocalisation which will, in turn, generate more road transport from abroad! This 'polluter-pays' approach simply moves the problem elsewhere instead of solving it on spot!"...A CO2 fuel tax?: While the Commission claims to have a strong hand with the road industry, it has decided not to make it pay for the costs to the environment caused by the sector's CO2 emissions through tolls – despite the fact that they represent roughly 20% of total EU CO2 emissions... The Commission defends this stance, saying it intends to deal with the problem via a review of its Energy Taxation Directive, where a CO2 element would be included in fuel taxation... (Photo: Trucks in Romania)
* Letonia - Introduction of vignettes or road tax in Latvia could cause several trucking companies go bankrupt
Riga,Letonia -The Baltic Course, by Alla Petrova -10 July 2008: -- ... The international truckers association Latvijas auto President Valdis Trezins said in an interview on Latvian State Radio today... As reported, the government has supported amendments to the "Law on Motor Roads", which stipulate introduction of the so-called Eurovignette or road tax starting from January 1, 2009. Starting from next year, all freight trucks with a weight of over 12 tons will be subject to the road tax... "Under the circumstances, yet another tax may become the last straw," said Trezins, adding that the more than 20,000 truck drivers would be affected by the new tax... Trezins said that the association supports the idea of the tax, but introduction of the tax, currently scheduled for January 1, must be put off one or one-and-a-half years... Trezins also pointed to problems at the Latvian-Russian border that truckers have to face on a regular basis. "If a truck has to spend four days at the border, what kind of a business is that?" asked Trezins, adding that truck lines at the border are causing enormous losses for the trucking business...
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