Tolls, tolls, tolls (and vignettes)

I rarely have much of an opinion on anything in German politics.  This is generally because I really don't feel I am grasping enough background of complex issues--between my outside status and my limited German I just "don't get it."

There is one issue which has gotten a tremendous amount of press in the past year or so, and is relatively cut and dry and mundane, about which I have been able to form an opinion though---the push to move to a vignette system, requiring drivers from other countries who drive to (or, as often as not, through) Germany to help pay for the roads they are using.  Whether Germany should require a sticker, and how to go about it, has been the subject of seemingly endless articles and much debate.

The idea of requiring a toll or sticker to drive in your country is certainly not new to the EU.  Spain and France seem to have toll booths every 50 kilometers and for us to drive from our house to Barcelona and back runs about 150 in tolls alone.  In holiday periods you can often wait 30 minutes (and sometimes much longer) in backed up traffic just to PAY the toll (the environmental cost of all those cars idling in the French countryside, where this seems to be a particular problem, is astounding).

Switzerland has a (reasonably priced at, in my opinion) yearly vignette sticker that you must buy and display.  It costs 35 euros for the year and if bought in December works for the following year (so holiday travelers need not buy two to leave before Christmas and return before the new year).  Swiss border guards physically look for vignettes at border crossings, which can gum up and slow down traffic in very high travel days as well.

Several other countries have tolls or vignettes (or both!) as well--including all three wich we drove through in the 4 hours after we left Germany yesterday.

First up was Austria where we end up cheaper to buy a 10 day vignette for 8.70€ and another one on our return in 12 days than buying a month long one for 25.30€ (there is also a yearly option for 84.40€).  In addition to that, we went through two toll areas totaling another 13 Euro.  For our trip, that means we spent 20.70€ to drive for two and a half hours in Austria.

Moving into Slovenia, a country in which we drove for only half and hour and whose roads left  a lot to be desired, it worked out to the same price to buy a one month pass than two one week passes, so we saved the hassle of a second stop and plunked down 30 euro.  Yep, 30 Euro for an hour of total drive time on bad roads.  Sigh.

(a photo of our car window cluttered with all of our vignettes--Dave dislikes all the clutter and pulls off expired ones right away; this is the 2014 Switzerland, a 10 day Austria and a 1 month Slovenia)

Here in Croatia there is no vignette.  We just hit one toll road as we drove into the city, about 45 minutes on the road cost the equivalent of around 6 euro.

So in total, those four hours of driving beyond Germany's borders will work out to about 48 Euro (splitting the cost of that Slovenian sticker in half since it works on the way home as well).

So, it seems that many Germans, and German politicians have decided it is high time that the many foreigners who criss cross the German autobahn contribute to keeping those autobahns in the excellent shape they are in (constantly under construction, which gets annoying, but in excellent shape).  As I understand it (and I admit I have not spent a ton of time delving into details--it is more that the debate has been nigh impossible to avoid) the idea is to have a vignette system fairly similar to Austria's (with one year and also shorter term options) and similarly priced as well (though, without the added tolls in addition to the sticker cost).

So far this seems pretty simple, right?  The problem comes in the details (isn't that always the case?).  It seems that per EU law, no member country can impose a fee on others that it does not impose on its own people--so in order to require a sticker, German drivers would have to also buy one--simply paying income tax and car taxes (which, of course, are what currently fund these roads and would continue to do so) would not be enough.  Many Germans and their politicians balk at paying more themselves.

The ever inventive lawmakers have come up with a plan to have everyone buy a sticker, and then Germans can receive a tax credit equal to the amount they paid for the sticker when filing for the year.  So, essentially German drivers will not spend more per year than they do already--but on paper this fits the letter of the EU law--well, it MIGHT fit, Austria and The Netherlands are not happy with this game playing and are threatening to sue Germany if the country in fact moves to this system in 2016.

So, what is my opinion?  Well, I am not thrilled with the political game playing and moving money around on paper to meet the letter of the law---though that seems par for the course in politics pretty much world wide.  And I do think it is a bit absurd for the EU to have a law that prevents  charging a reasonable road use fee to those who are not paying taxes to maintain those roads otherwise, unless they make it an cross the board thing that each country must allow free access to their roads and support them entirely themselves (and I should clarify that there are MANY foreign cars on the autobahn all the time; in some holiday periods nearly half the cars on the road lack the German D on their plates.  Also, in our area we see lots and lots of drivers, primarily Dutch for our location,  driving through Germany on their way to France, Spain or Italy.  Much like us driving through Austria or Slovenia yesterday, these drivers are not adding much of anything to the economy as they are not staying as tourists, just getting across us on their way elsewhere).  Which means, I am fine with trying for the loophole under the circumstances, though my preference would be to just have everyone buy vignettes from now on (Germany included and yes that means us) and then perhaps Germany can not raise plate taxes for quite a while to make up for it.  That seems the most fair to me, and the most like what probably happened elsewhere.

So there you have it, my one foray into offering an opinion on a hot button political issue in Germany (and seriously, only Germans could put THIS much thought and discussion into something as simple as a 90€ a year driving sticker--I think we've been hearing about it for two years now already).