Document

With a view to next week’s vote on the Cocilovo report, we would like to draw your attention to a number of issues that our members are particularly concerned with. The European Shippers’ Council (ESC) represents the interests of European industry as users of freight transport services in all modes of freight transport.

We will shortly explain our position and recommended amendments on the following topics:

costs to be charged for
toll variation
congestion
cross-financing
compensation

Costs to be charged for

ESC welcomes the fact that controversial, difficult to quantify cost elements have been largely excluded - with the exception of external accident costs - from the Commission proposal. ESC would favour excluding accident costs altogether (amendment 195 Ferber, amendment 112 Jarzembowski), or opting for reducing these costs to those directly related to actual payments made for reducing or preventing accidents (amendment 194, Pex).

Toll variation

ESC considers that differentiated tolls can play a positive role in raising cost awareness amongst infrastructure users, but the Commission proposal lacks precision as to the allowed degree of deviation from the average weighed costs. Therefore ESC strongly supports amendments 196 and 197 from Mr Pex which clarify that Member States can levy tolls whose total burden is less than the average weighed costs (especially important for the competitiveness of peripheral countries), and that toll variation should not result in an increase of the average weighed costs.

Congestion

Varying tolls according to the time of day is effectively a congestion charge. Since private cars – the largest part contributors to congestion - are not charged, hopes for positive effects of toll differentiation are forlorn, which will not help boost acceptance of it. Freight vehicles will be faced with increased transport costs and will still suffer from congestion. ESC does not call for including private cars within the scope of the directive, but it does call on the European Parliament to only allow this type of congestion charging if it is applied to all vehicles. Amendments 198 (Pex) and 117 (Vermeer) ensure this, without extending the scope of the directive to include private cars.

Cross-financing

The proposal prescribes that the revenues from motorway tolls and road infrastructure charges will be earmarked exclusively for road infrastructure and “for the benefit of the transport sector as a whole, taking account of the balanced development of the transport networks”. ESC welcomes the proposal to earmark these revenues for transport infrastructure, but considers that they should be reserved exclusively for road infrastructure. The proposal already foresees the possibility of mark-ups to cross-finance other infrastructure in sensitive regions and if there is to be cross-financing it should be restricted to these exceptional cases only. ESC therefore supports amendments 160 (Vermeer), 205 and 207 (Pex), that clarify that the general rule should be that the revenues are reserved for the development of the road transport sector.

Concerning the exception that would allow Member States to apply mark-ups in “sensitive regions” - although opposed to cross-financing as a matter of principle - ESC would find it important to at least limit mark-ups to the Alps and Pyrenees (amendment 136, Jarzembowski) and to those situations where the investment contributes to an actual reduction in the pressure on the infrastructure to which the mark-up applies (amendment 137, van Dam).

Compensation

The Commission states in its explanatory memorandum that the introduction of infrastructure user fees need not increase the overall burden of taxes and fees in the road sector. In line with that, it is proposed that the Member States should be allowed to “provide compensation for these charges, in particular by reducing the rates of vehicle taxes”. ESC indeed considers that vehicle excise duty should be abolished, but this is a very marginal compensation. In order to not increase the overall burden of taxes and fees in the transport sector, the cost increase should be offset by lower fuel excise duties. But this is not possible (except for the UK) under the recently by the Council adopted energy taxation directive. Many Members of Parliament refer to compensation measures, and ESC considers this should be mandatory (amendment 150, Jarzembowski), but the only non-discriminatory solution - apart from abolishing vehicle excise duty Europe-wide -would seem to be to allow member states to reimburse (part of th ) tolls paid to those users that have already paid fuel excise duties. Another way of phrasing it would be to allow the share of mineral oil duties used for infrastructure to be credited against tolls. Amendments 201 (Ferber), 202 (Pex) and 152 (Pohjamo, Vattanen) go in this direction and are strongly supported by ESC.

Thank you for the attention you may give to our views.

Yours sincerely,

Ewout Sandker
Policy Manager

For further information contact: Nicolette van der Jagt, Secretary General of the ESC - Brussels 00 322 230 2113