The EU has reached an agreement on revised road charging rules for lorries (the Eurovignette directive) that would open the door for Member States to charge for air and noise pollution in road tolls but introduces a loophole for lorries under twelve tonnes. The deal was finalised last night in 'trialogue' discussions between the European Commission, Council and Parliament.
Transport & Environment (T&E) strongly criticises the announcement today by the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Environment Melanie Schultz Van Haegen to allow trucks up to 25 meters long and 60 tonnes in weight to operate across the Dutch road network (1). EU law currently restricts the length of lorries to a maximum of 18.75m and 40-44 tonnes.
This briefing aims to provide a short overview of the history and present status of EU energy tax policy, and summarises the Commission's proposal for a revised Energy Tax Directive (ETD), launched in April 2011.
The European Parliament's Transport committee reached an agreement on revised road charging rules for lorries (the Eurovignette directive) that
would open the door for Member States to charge for air and noise pollution in road tolls.
Opinion by Jos Dings - T&E Director
Did we miss something? Last year, the European Commission didn’t propose a single new legislative measure to clean up transport. To be fair, it has been spending most of its time worrying about the future of the Eurozone. As a result, for T&E this was the sort of year where seeds for smarter transport policy were sown. We’re optimistic that next year could bring a decent crop of positive changes.
Today, in Luxembourg, European Transport Ministers reached an agreement on revised road charging rules for lorries (the Eurovignette directive). Nina Renshaw, deputy director at Transport & Environment (T&E), welcomed the agreement but also stressed that a number of issues remain.
Briefing on the report for T&E by CE Delft and Significance on how sensitive road freight demand is to changes in price.
Efforts to reduce climate emissions from road freight transport were given a boost last month when the Commission suggested the introduction of carbon dioxide emissions standards for the first time. The idea has been floated in a communication on clean and energy-efficient vehicles, which concentrates mainly on setting a framework for the development of electric cars.
Research by the respected Dutch consultancy CE Delft has shown that carbon dioxide emissions from road transport could be reduced by 30% if motorway speed limits in the Netherlands were set at 80 km/h.
