Comment: Motorway toll - Thanks Austria! | Comments | '
There are few things Germans deserve to be thankful for Austria – the most likely ones are the Viennese waltz or the Sacher cake, apple strudel and a variety of delicious desserts. But Tuesday of this week is undoubtedly one of the days when you, as an ordinary German, were allowed to enjoy your neighbor to the south.
Because Austria has saved Germany from a bureaucratic juggernaut, of which, according to calculations of the car-driver lobby ADAC is not even clear whether he would have fulfilled his actual goal at all – namely to bring money into the state treasury. The Germans got caught up in the project highway toll in one of their core competencies: to solve an actually simple problem particularly demanding and thus terribly complicated.
A crazy idea from Bavaria
The idea was born six years ago in the south of the republic, specifically in Bavaria. There they got excited at the local tables that the brave Bayer has to pay motorway tolls in all its neighboring countries, while all the foreigners on the way to the Alps or to the Adriatic may simply board over the beautiful German motorways. And because the Bavarian-ruling CSU is a populist party in the best sense of the word, the highway toll for foreigners became a political program from then on.
‘ editor Felix Steiner
"With me there will be no car toll," Angela Merkel had indeed declared in the following election campaign in 2013 shortly thereafter. But shortly after the election, the allegedly so steadfast fell over, and the demand landed in the coalition agreement of the previous federal government. Since then, this GAU (in the sense of: greatest mischief to be assumed) employs entire staffs in the (CSU-led) Ministry of Transport.
But even at this point in time, things could have been handled quite simply: Everyone – whether domestic or foreign – bought a sticker for the windshield of their car and that's it. Austrians, Swiss and Czechs have been doing this for years. Also for the friends of the technically sophisticated solution, there was an obvious option: just extend the existing and proven system of truck toll. Also every car would have got a chip card with transmitter and from now on it would have been billed to the nearest kilometer: Who drives a lot, pays a lot. If you are only passing through once a year, less accordingly.
Discrimination as a principle
But no, we Germans, the alleged super and model Europeans, wanted to have it absolutely cost-neutral for their own compatriots. Because we have long since paid our beautiful highways and groan in European comparison already under the almost highest gasoline and motor vehicle taxes. And because we Germans to our cars and highways (keyword speed limit) just have a very special relationship (as otherwise only to the German forest) and therefore at this point are very cost-sensitive. Numbers should end up just the stupid foreigners who also cash in on us Germans in transit.
Why nobody in Berlin, at the European Commission and not even in February the Advocate General at the European Court of Justice was able to detect discrimination when all have to pay, but the Germans get the money back via car tax decree, remains a mystery. Since one had falsely speculated that the eco-camouflage (for particularly low-emission cars should be refunded more than the toll would have cost) would hide this crude and discriminatory barter sufficiently.
After six long years, it's finally over, and that's a good thing. Thanks to Austria and its action before the ECJ!
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