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Brussels - A European-wide road toll could be a solution to a dispute between the EU and Germany over its plans to introduce a tolling system Brussels believes may be illegal, the bloc's transport chief said on Friday.
The European Commission and Berlin are in a standoff over Berlin's plans to introduce a road toll in 2016 aimed at foreign drivers using Germany's Autobahn motorways. German drivers would also pay the toll but would be compensated with a reduction in existing automobile taxes.
Some other EU member states already have toll systems to help fund the upkeep of their motorways but the Commission fears the German plan discriminates against non-German EU citizens.
European Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said the issue Germany was trying to address was one facing Europe as a whole.
"That's why we started to think about a universal European toll system that could address especially the needs of the users for small travel throughout Europe," said the Slovenian former computer scientist.
The scheme would be voluntary, meaning member states could decide whether to opt in, she said.
The EU toll system would be based on distance travelled instead of time travelled and all revenues would go back to member states, ideally for channelling into spending on infrastructure, Bulc said.
The Commission is monitoring any national schemes closely to make sure they are in line with EU law, she added.
Any attempt to introduce a pan-EU tolling system would be sure to face political resistance in many member states.
The Commission also wants to reverse what Bulc referred to as decades of short-term thinking by governments that has resulted in the neglect of infrastructure.
"Now we are faced with obsolete, old ... infrastructure which is really hurting our industry," she added.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has launched an investment package designed to mobilise up to €315bn ($356bn) of public and private investments to kickstart growth in the 28-member bloc.
The Commission has drawn up a wish list of over 2 000 projects worth more than €1.3 trillion ($1.47trn), of which just under a third are in the transport sector.
Bulc said the EU needed to cut the contribution of transport to greenhouse gas emissions, saying it accounted for almost a third of all energy use in Europe. But 94% of that is oil-based, she added.
"We are working in the direction of electrification of transport."
* ($1 = €0.8854)
