Motorway Tolls and Sustainable Transport Policy

Abstract

Abstract Aside from energy policy, transport policy is likely to pose the greatest challenges in the quest for a comprehensive, sustainable policy agenda. With Article 2 of the EC Treaty simultaneously calling for a harmonious, balanced, and sustainable development of economic activities and a high level of protection and improvement of environmental quality, a transport policy that meets the requirements of sustainability becomes absolutely critical. Surprisingly enough, however, the environmental integration principle, which was already elevated to the status of primary law with its inclusion in the EC Treaty in 1987, has been essentially ignored within the scope of European transport policy—which, alongside agricultural policy, is one of the original core policies of the Community. As the European Commission has phrased it, therefore, the ‘Time to Decide’ has come for transport policy, and an internalization of external costs has been identified as one of its main priorities. Among policy instruments, electronically collected motorway tolls rank high in the favour and hopes of decision makers. The following chapter will outline political opportunities and the legal framework of this newly discovered instrument for sustainable transport policy. The current policy debate illustrates that, both from the perspective of environmental protection as well as transport and competition policy, several issues require clarification with a view to their bearing on primary European Community (EC) law and their implementation through legally consistent secondary rules.