German highways no longer free? – European Commission approves implementation of vignettes

Germany has received a permit for implementing highway toll, which, if realized, would mean saying goodbye to free usage of more than 12,000 kilometers of German highways. However, there are many problems to implementing this measure.

The European Commission greenlighted the introduction of tolls is Germany after a lot of haggling. The annual vignette for motor vehicle drivers should cost up to EUR 130. Drivers will be compensated for this expense through motor vehicle taxes. Owners of Euro 6 class cars (low toxic emission) will even be awarded. The European Union has so far considered foreign drivers to be discriminated due to the fact that only German drivers benefit from the compensations. To that end, the cheapest, ten-day vignette, costing EUR 2.5 instead of EUR 5, as previously defined, has been introduced. There will be five types of vignettes, with the most expensive one costing EUR 20.

However, although there are no more complaints by the European Commission, Austria has announced filing a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice due to the discrimination of its drivers in Germany, and the Netherlands and Belgium might join together to do the same.

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