Starting in 2016, motorists on German autobahns are in for a surprise
For the pleasure of speeding along the super-smooth and convenient highways, they will have to pay $163 a year. German drivers will also have to pay the same amount, but it will be deducted from their vehicle tax. So for Germans, driving on the autobahns will effectively remain free.
The vast majority of Germans approved the government's decision to charge for driving on the autobahns. They believe it should have been done much earlier. In the opinion of German residents, foreigners have been driving on German roads for free for too long, while they themselves charge foreigners (and Germans too) for using their own highways.
The strongest opposition to the existing order came from residents of Bavaria, which borders Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. In all these countries, they had to pay a toll for using local roads if they arrived in cars with German license plates. However, Austrians, Swiss, and Czechs drove for free on the world's best German roads.
“This fee is absolutely fair,” Bild quotes German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, a native of Bavaria and the author of the new law, as saying. “It will put an end to the discrimination of German drivers abroad.”
Dobrindt is a member of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, an ally of Angela Merkel in the coalition government. He has long called for an end to discrimination against German motorists. By introducing the toll for using the autobahns, the government is fulfilling an election promise.
Despite claims of fairness and non-discrimination, Brussels and Germany's neighbors reacted rather skeptically to the innovation. Austria's Ministry of Transport has already instructed lawyers to examine whether the road toll in Germany would discriminate against motorists from other countries. The Austrians also warned that if the experts' answer is positive, Vienna would take all legal and other measures to abolish it.
According to Helen Kearns, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, in Brussels, before commenting, they must first carefully study the final text of the new law. However, already now the EC believes that German drivers and drivers from other countries in Germany should enjoy equal rights.
Sergei MANUKOV.
«Expert Online»