MEPs demand truck tolls to curb CO2 emissions

Fourteen MEPs have signed a letter to EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc demanding the European Commission propose legislation to impose new tolls on trucks, according to Euractiv. The Commission's Energy Union plans announced earlier this year dropped truck tolls laid out in earlier versions. There is currently no CO2 standard for trucks in Europe, although car and van CO2 emissions are limited. European Commission data shows trucks contributing one quarter of CO2 emissions from road transport in
November 20, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Fourteen MEPs have signed a letter to EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc demanding the European Commission propose legislation to impose new tolls on trucks, according to Euractiv.

The Commission's Energy Union plans announced earlier this year dropped truck tolls laid out in earlier versions.

There is currently no CO2 standard for trucks in Europe, although car and van CO2 emissions are limited. European Commission data shows trucks contributing one quarter of CO2 emissions from road transport in the EU, although campaigners estimate the figure to be higher.

The MEPs called for an amendment to the Eurovignette directive to scrap time-based charges and draft legislation that moves towards “full and mandatory internalisation of external costs and that enables the differentiation of tolls based on the energy efficiency of CO2 emissions of trucks.”

The Commission is expected to present new legislation on road transport next year. The MEPs asked Bulc to include new toll legislation for trucks in that proposal.
UTC

Related Content

  • February 3, 2012
    Progress of ICT transport research projects
    Juhani Jääskeläinen, head of the ICT for Transport Unit, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission, details the results of Call 4 for research projects in ICT for transport. Since the closure of the call and evaluation process during the summer of last year the European Commission (EC) has been negotiating and signing contracts with projects which were selected from proposals submitted to Call 4 of the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) fo
    Read More
  • May 24, 2023
    Tolling: it’s time to open up
    Europe sees more and more tolling schemes being implemented based on GNSS technology and an ‘open marketplace’ model. What are the drivers behind this trend and do those schemes show how toll systems will look in the future? Peter Ummenhofer of Go Consulting goes out on the road
    Read More
  • November 27, 2013
    EU rules extend the ‘long arm of the law’
    New EU legislation allows authorities to collect fines from errant foreign motorists even after they have returned to their own country. New European Union legislation means drivers in many Member States can be prosecuted for breaking traffic laws when driving outside their home country. While not all the Member States will not be signing up to Directive 2011/82/EU facilitating the cross-border exchange of information on road safety related traffic offences, for those that do the deadline date to impleme
    Read More
  • February 2, 2012
    A carbon free and accident free Europe by 2015?
    By 2050, the Europe Commission aims to make transport in Europe carbon- and accident-free. Between now and then, however, a significant technological development and deployment effort is needed. Here, Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, talks about what's being done. In many respects, COOPERS, CVIS and SAFESPOT, set up by the European Commission (EC) to explore the potential of cooperative infrastructure systems, are already legacy projects. Between them, the three devel
    Read More

Highlighted Content