For Italian motorists, something new is coming from Germany. From 2016, they will have to pay for travel on Germany's efficient autobahns. In fact, the notorious PKW-Maut, i.e. the motorway toll, will be introduced … but only for foreigners!
In reality, Angela Merkel was very clear during the last electoral campaign: "There will be no motorway tolls". But it is well known that the German chancellor is not as strict as is believed in Italy. In Germany, rather, you are famous for being flexible, always ready to compromise and for having often revised your ideas: from aid to Greece to the energy breakthrough, from women's quotas to, in fact, motorway tolls.
Already in the program of the Grand Coalition signed last year, on a proposal from the Bavarian Christian Socialists, there was an agreement between the government forces (CDU, CSU and SPD) for the introduction of the PKW-Maut: "in order to improve infrastructure, it is intended to introduce a motorway toll that complies with European standards and which does not affect German citizens".
The Bavarians of the CSU and their infrastructure minister in Berlin, Alexander Dobrindt, have made the introduction of the toll for foreigners one of the reasons for their presence in Merkel's third government. Bavarian citizens really don't like having to pay for motorways in Austria or Italy when foreigners can use the excellent German motorways without having to pay a euro. In other words, the introduction of the motorway toll is to the CSU what the minimum wage is to the SPD.
However, the introduction of the toll proved to be a more difficult project than the social Christians had initially imagined. Making it pay only to foreign citizens would have violated European regulations. The initial system also envisaged the payment of tolls on all German roads, but the Länder rebelled against this project, fearing a dramatic drop in tourist visits to border areas.
While Dobrindt has accelerated the drafting of the bill in recent months, his government allies, for their part, have resisted and until this summer few in the government coalition believed, as Daniela Kuhr stated in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, that they would have managed to create a bill that complied with European Union standards and did not burden German motorists. In the end, infrastructure minister Dobrindt's hyper-activism was rewarded, so much so that he even managed to overcome the strong skepticism of the German Länder.
Last Thursday the bill was published which modifies and improves the draft presented on 7 July. The motorway toll will thus be introduced only on motorways and federal roads for Germans while for foreigners only on motorways and will have a maximum cost of 130 euros (initially it was 100 euros), but there is the possibility of paying 10 euros for ten days or 22 euros (initially they were 20) for two months. Foreigners will be able to pay it online or at petrol stations near the border, Germans will have it deducted from their bank account.
Anyone who does not pay will be liable to a fine of 260 euros plus the cost of the toll due. But Dobrindt's problem at this point was how to find some sort of rebate for German citizens, as stipulated by the Grand Coalition governing agreement. Thus the German minister's project envisages that the Germans will have a reduction on car tax equal to the toll they will have paid previously. A solution that also solves the problem of compliance with European standards, so much so that the European Commission has already affirmed that the project is going in the right direction, but in any case the European Court of Justice will have to express its definitive opinion.
Under these conditions, the toll should enter into force on 1 January 2016. In this way Dobrindt will complete the mission for which the CSU leader Horst Seehofer had indicated him to the Chancellor for the Ministry of Infrastructure and will thus be able to boast, in addition to the two big electoral victories in 2013, having led the party to 47,7 percent in the regional elections and 49,3 in the federal elections as secretary general of the CSU, so too does the highway toll. In short, a mortgage on the succession to Horst Seehofer.
However, the bill remains controversial, especially from an economic point of view. Overall, Dobrindt's ministry counts on having a total revenue of 3,7 billion euros from tolls, of which, however, 3 billion only from German motorists who will be fully reimbursed through the reduction of the road tax. Of the remaining 700 million, then, 195 million are used to finance the complicated system invented by the Germans. In the end, only 500 million euros will remain (for ADAC, the German Automobile-Club, it could even be as low as 300 million). A very small figure which in the end demonstrates that the stubbornness with which the German-Bavarians have demanded the introduction of the toll is a matter of principle rather than substance.
