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The Court of Justice of the European Communities has ruled that Germany’s road tolls for road haulage companies are too high. The judges agreed that charges for the traffic police should not be included in the bill.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ruled on Wednesday that Germany should not charge transport companies for the cost of traffic police on German roads.
According to the court, only infrastructure costs can be taken into account when setting tolls. These costs, he said, include charges for the operation, maintenance and expansion of the road network.
“Police activities, however, are the responsibility of the state, which exercises sovereign powers and not only acts as administrator of the road infrastructure,” the court said.
What is the background to the case?
A Polish transport company had filed a complaint about a bill for using German roads in 2010 and 2011, claiming that the charge was too high.
He said the truck tolls, which included the cost of traffic police, violated an EU directive on road fees that stipulates that fees should only include infrastructure costs.
The original complaint was filed with an administrative court in Cologne, which rejected the complaint.
A higher administrative court in the German city of Münster suspended the appeal procedure and requested an interpretation from the ECJ.
The court’s attorney general for the case had already informed the court that the traffic police charges should not be applied.
Last year, the ECJ ruled against the implementation of tolls for private non-residents on German motorways, known as “vignettes”, as they were deemed discriminatory.
What is the truck toll?
The charges on federal highways were introduced in 2005 as part of an effort to shift the burden off of taxpayers and ordinary road users. Instead, the idea was that heavy vehicle operators that wear down the roads should pay more.
The toll is applied to all trucks weighing more than 7.5 metric tons, with a differentiation in price based on the polluting emissions of the vehicles.
What does this mean?
The Münster court, which is the highest administrative court of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, must now render a ruling on the Polish case. However, it is subject to the jurisprudence of the Luxembourg judges.
The German Transport Ministry announced shortly before the ruling that it would take note of the court’s findings. The verdict is likely to have an impact on future toll prices.
