Alex Trelinski
SPAIN has been given an ultimatum by the European Union to introduce new toll road charges based on vehicle emissions or face legal action.
Seven other countries also face sanctions for not introducing EU-wide standards over toll charges.
The so-called Eurovignette Directive establishes common rules on the imposition of toll charges and time-based user charges (vignettes), ‘allowing Member States to recover infrastructure costs (construction, operation, maintenance) through tolls and vignettes’.
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Cars, buses, coaches and small heavy vehicles are all included within the EU ruling.
The directive requires member states to include the environmental costs of air pollution in their charging systems ‘to establish charges based on a vehicle’s CO2 emissions’, with the aim of reducing pollution and encouraging cleaner heavy-duty vehicles.
The deadline for incorporating the directive into national law was March 25, and there are seven EU states besides Spain that are in trouble with Brussels, namely Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Portugal.
The eight countries have been given two months to respond or face legal consequences.
A European Commission statement said that if it hears nothing, it ‘may decide to refer the matter to the European Union Court of Justice’.
Spain has been given large swathes of money from the EU for its ‘recovery plan’ in the wake of the Covid pandemic but that came on the condition that it would bring toll charging and rules to the same standard as the rest of the bloc.
The Sanchez government has slow-paced changes due to the likely backlash from motorists having to pay more to use motorway toll roads as well as charges being introduced to some secondary roads.
