Germany to privatise highways

[luiz]

This is technically true, but the numbers do not really work out. There are foreigners driving on German roads, but their number is small. The drivers clogging the autobahnen are mostly Germans. The income from demanding a toll from foreigners would barely offset the cost for maintaining the system. The problem was that the toll was supposed to be a) revenue neutral, b) no German driver should pay a single cent more than before and c) compatible with EU law. This was essentially impossible, but the CSU made these promises to appeal to xenophobic voters, so they had to do something. The problem is that Germans tend to overregulate everything, with the car tax being no exception. So a profitable flat toll for everybody (regardless of nationality) was impossible, because some drivers did not pay enough taxes that could be returned. That meant that regulations of the tax system had to be mapped to the toll system, resulting in a system that would have been neither profitable nor legal. I am glad the EU shot that monstrosity down.

Do you have any numbers? Because I remember seeing a huge number of cars and trucks with foreign license plates on German roads, and this makes sense considering Germany's central position, good road system and lack of tolls.

I agree the proposed solution was way too complicated. They could just collect a toll from everyone and give a tax cut somewhere else (Germany has a surplus and needs to encourage private spending, so any new revenue should be offset by tax cuts). Keep it simple: if drivers are paying more in tolls, cut tax on gasoline so that the net result is zero.

The "crazy traffic" is hardly down to foreign drivers coming over here for joyrides (although that does happen, just ask any Dutch driver living near the German border.. ). It's down to Germany being at the center of Europe and that's not going to change anytime soon.

However: I believe that they're targeting the wrong demographic here (so to speak). High maintenance cost on the Autobahns are a result of increased numbers of heavy vehicles (like trucks) which cause a lot more wear and tear to roads than cars. Shipping goods via trucks is obviously still way too cheap over here. So cheap in fact that companies have been using the roads as storehouses ("Just-in-time", anyone?) since at least the 1980s. And that's a thing they should penalize: Being able to drive to work is just a necessity for a lot of people. But large companies wanting to cut down on their cost, thus dismantling their storehouses (cutting jobs in the process) and shifting a good chunk of their inventory onto the roads is just a greedy industry at work while abusing everyone's infrastructure.

Instead of privatizing the roads, they should incentivize shipping goods via trains for example (much greener way of logistics, anyway).

S.

I never said it was due to "joyrides". But what does that change? Fact is foreign cars and trucks are crossing Germany in hordes. Germans are left with the full maintenance bill and with heavy traffic, and as soon as they cross the border they have to pay heavy tolls (or vignettes). Traffic is so bad in many autobahns that despite the absence of speed limit, when driving between Paris and Munich I always have much higher average speed in the French section (which is heavily tolled and much emptier). The drive from Munich to Stuttgart is a nightmare more often than not - indeed, nobody in their right mind would consider that a "joyride".

And you're quite right about companies (from all over the EU and even beyond) using German roads as free warehouses. Stop in any gas station in any autobahn and you see an ocean of parked trucks. "Mysteriously" this doesn't happen in the tolled French roads.

Collecting tolls is much fairer than not.

And you're right, governments should incentivize shipping goods via train. I think trains are more suited for shipping cargo than people, actually, but this is another debate.

Dosnt Germany have insanely cheap rent, food and generous paid vacations ?
What dose the german government do with all the surpluses ?

Apparently this old tax rule for single persons were introduced in 1945 and the tax system has been this way ever since.

Insanely cheap rent? Maybe in the East or in the trashy parts of Berlin. In Munich I paid about the same rent as I do in Paris for an equivalent apartment, and Paris isn't exactly "cheap" - more like insanely expensive, even if not as bad as London. Food is slightly cheaper in Germany than France, but it's by no means "insanely" cheap. It's a very small difference. And the quality of food you get in French supermarkets is better (then again, the quality of food in French supermarkets is better than anywhere else). Paid vacations are equally generous in both countries I'd say - the French get 5 weeks paid vacations, plus a lot of holidays. And they work less hours per week.

The German tax system is probably the heaviest on "social engineering" in the world. If you're singe with no kids and earn a decent salary, you're screwed. Pretty much the most heavily taxed country on Earth for that demographic (even in France you'll pay way less tax, which is rather shocking). If you're married with a few kids, the tax rate falls dramatically and is actually about as low as in the US. Then Germany becomes a great deal tax-wise, considering you still have a lot of benefits.

 

[uppi]

Do you have any numbers? Because I remember seeing a huge number of cars and trucks with foreign license plates on German roads, and this makes sense considering Germany's central position, good road system and lack of tolls.

I agree the proposed solution was way too complicated. They could just collect a toll from everyone and give a tax cut somewhere else (Germany has a surplus and needs to encourage private spending, so any new revenue should be offset by tax cuts). Keep it simple: if drivers are paying more in tolls, cut tax on gasoline so that the net result is zero.

It is hard to find recent numbers, but foreign cars are around 6% of the total car traffic. Reducing that contribution would not help much to improve the traffic situation. For that you would have to penalize German drivers, which the proposed law was not supposed to. There are regional differences, of course and near the borders you will find more foreign cars, but most of that traffic has an end point in Germany and contributes tot the local economy.

And you're quite right about companies (from all over the EU and even beyond) using German roads as free warehouses. Stop in any gas station in any autobahn and you see an ocean of parked trucks. "Mysteriously" this doesn't happen in the tolled French roads.

Collecting tolls is much fairer than not.

And you're right, governments should incentivize shipping goods via train. I think trains are more suited for shipping cargo than people, actually, but this is another debate.

The situation is different for trucks. For them, the foreign traffic is about one third of the total truck traffic. However, there is already a toll for trucks. The law that was blocked by the EU only concerned cars. So, no free warehouses for anyone. You could argue that the tolls for trucks are too low, but that could be easily increased without any EU interference.

 

[dutchfire]

As far as I understand the situation, people in Bayern are upset that they have to pay toll/vignets when they go to Austria or Switzerland, yet those people can drive for free in Germany. Since motorists angry at foreigners are the core demographic of the CSU, and since they have no other ideas whatsoever, they made this a somewhat central point of their political campaign.

Sadly, however, the German government over the last decade has been pretty much incapable of actually doing something. *cough BER cough*
In this case, anything that even remotely looks like an additional tax on Germans is politically unacceptable, especially to the angry motorist demographic that this all started for. Anything that explicitly discriminates between Germans and foreigners is illegal under EU law. Any chance to get a toll system that mostly hits foreigners, but with enough plausible deniability to claim that it does not discriminate, has been destroyed by these failed attempts. Any EU court will heavily scrutinize new rules.


One point that I haven't seen discussed here, is the fact that many Autobahnen are constructed and renovated with EU funding [and in some cases, like the A31 with foreign funding]. Those funders will obviously be unhappy when the roads become less accessible to their taxpayers.

Then, some responses to the discussion above:

Germany has ... a great highway system

I don't think that the German Autobahn quality is especially good. Sure, it's better than Belgium, but for a highly developed country, the highways are nothing special. The maintenance situation in particular is pretty bad in places. Something that's true of German infrastructure more generally. The "Germans have very good infrastructure" thing is a bit of prejudice that's not always true in practice.

Germany is far from the only country that has a lot of foreign motorists. Belgium especially comes to mind, but also Switzerland and Austria. Germany is sufficiently large that driving through it in one go is not necessarily a pleasure, and I would guess that most foreign motorists on the German roads have Germany as a destination. As an example, Germany is the #1 tourist destination for the Dutch, and all those tourist motorists are bringing in money to the Germany economy. Taxing them away is not the best idea.

 

[luiz]

I don't think that the German Autobahn quality is especially good. Sure, it's better than Belgium, but for a highly developed country, the highways are nothing special. The maintenance situation in particular is pretty bad in places. Something that's true of German infrastructure more generally. The "Germans have very good infrastructure" thing is a bit of prejudice that's not always true in practice.

Germany is far from the only country that has a lot of foreign motorists. Belgium especially comes to mind, but also Switzerland and Austria. Germany is sufficiently large that driving through it in one go is not necessarily a pleasure, and I would guess that most foreign motorists on the German roads have Germany as a destination. As an example, Germany is the #1 tourist destination for the Dutch, and all those tourist motorists are bringing in money to the Germany economy. Taxing them away is not the best idea.

Well I'd say the German roads are great as far non-tolled roads go. Definitely there are better ones in Europe, but generally they aren't cheap to drive on.

Foreign drivers are not a problem, the problem is when all your neighbors adopt tolls / vignettes and you don't, and your central location naturally attracts a lot of people crossing your territory. Switzerland needs not to worry with foreign motorists crossing its territory and increasing its maintenance bill and traffic congestion, because Switzerland brutalizes everyone who enters its territory with a 50 Euro vignette that expires rather fast. So they collect a lot of money that can be used for maintenance, expansion, etc.

I don't see why Germany can't implement a toll system and cut taxes on gasoline to offset the budget surplus.

 

[dutchfire]

The "all your neighbours" is a bit of a Bavarian perspective though. The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Denmark all do not charge toll or vignettes (except for a very limited number of tunnels and bridges). If you're living in Bremen, you're not so likely to encounter a toll road on your foreign travels.

 

[uppi]

Foreign drivers are not a problem, the problem is when all your neighbors adopt tolls / vignettes and you don't, and your central location naturally attracts a lot of people crossing your territory. Switzerland needs not to worry with foreign motorists crossing its territory and increasing its maintenance bill and traffic congestion, because Switzerland brutalizes everyone who enters its territory with a 50 Euro vignette that expires rather fast. So they collect a lot of money that can be used for maintenance, expansion, etc.

It does not really matter what the tolls in the other countries are, because due to its location there is hardly an alternative to going through it. If you want to drive from Poland to France, what would be the alternative? In the north there is the sea and in the south there are the Alps. The roads would have to be either extremely expensive or extremely bad for you to chose another route.

By the way, the 50 Euro toll for Swiss roads is not the reason for not crossing it. The tolls being as they are, it is actually cheaper to pay the Swiss toll than take an alternative route if you want to go from Germany to western Italy. The problem is that it takes a long time to cross Switzerland, because of all the mountains.

I don't see why Germany can't implement a toll system and cut taxes on gasoline to offset the budget surplus.

That is quite simple: There would be people paying more than before and that would be quite unpopular.

 

[Bootstoots]

Whatever the arguments offered for imposing tolls, I see none to justify making the thing private. Are they going to privatize taxes to tax farmers also?

This is the most important point raised so far. Why are they being privatized, rather than remaining public but with tolls?

 

[warpus]

Probably because the government doesn't want to control the company that has to be set up to run the toll booths. For whatever reason. Maybe that's the German way. Or they think governments running things isn't very effective and having a private entity run the company will lead to more efficiency. Or somebody's getting paid off somewhere. I guess what I'm saying is "follow the money"

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Allegedly it is more cost-effective - but there seems to be only empirical evidence to the contrary in Germany.
German finance industry and big construction firms do apparently love the idea.

 

[luiz]

The "all your neighbours" is a bit of a Bavarian perspective though. The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Denmark all do not charge toll or vignettes (except for a very limited number of tunnels and bridges). If you're living in Bremen, you're not so likely to encounter a toll road on your foreign travels.

I'd say it's a Bavarian, Baden-Wurttemberg, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate perspective at least.

It does not really matter what the tolls in the other countries are, because due to its location there is hardly an alternative to going through it. If you want to drive from Poland to France, what would be the alternative? In the north there is the sea and in the south there are the Alps. The roads would have to be either extremely expensive or extremely bad for you to chose another route.

By the way, the 50 Euro toll for Swiss roads is not the reason for not crossing it. The tolls being as they are, it is actually cheaper to pay the Swiss toll than take an alternative route if you want to go from Germany to western Italy. The problem is that it takes a long time to cross Switzerland, because of all the mountains.

Exactly, and the fact that German is the crossroads of Europe means it's entirely in its best interest to collect fees from foreigners crossing its borders, because a lot of foreigners will cross its borders and use its infrastructure no matter what. It's entirely obvious to me that collecting tolls on the autobahn is on the best interest of Germany.

That is quite simple: There would be people paying more than before and that would be quite unpopular.

More people would end up with more money, hence it would be more popular than not. It's simple: say the tolls collect 100 per year. This money comes from both Germans and foreigners. But the government institutes a tax cut of 100 that goes exclusively to Germans. Hence there is a net positive impact for Germans.

This is the most important point raised so far. Why are they being privatized, rather than remaining public but with tolls?

I assume "privatized" is the wrong word here. Most likely we're looking at a concession, for a limited number of years, where some private operator deals with the mechanics of collecting the tolls, maintaining the roads and etc, and pays a fee to the government, which in turn obliges the private operator to maintain minimum standards and regulates the fee. Probably a better idea than having public servants doing all that.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Strange. The EU is demanding the UK accept free movement of people if the UK is to have access to the single market.

Yet here is Germany, one of the original six, moving towards charging other member state nationals for access to Germany.

One rule for the goose, another for the gander.

 

[tesb]

your are conflating two very different issues. free movement inside the eu refers to the ability of any citizen of an eu member state to freely choose their space of work and living within eu, i.e. if you want you can move from portugal to germany to live and work there without any restrictions. it does not refer to the cost of transportation.

 

[EnglishEdward]

your are conflating two very different issues. free movement inside the eu refers to the ability of any citizen of an eu member state to freely choose their space of work and living within eu, i.e. if you want you can move from portugal to germany to live and work there without any restrictions. it does not refer to the cost of transportation.

I understand that in principle these are two different issues.

But how can people truly be free to choose residence and workplace; if one national has to pay a toll
every day for travelling from home A to work B and back, and another national of a different member state
can travel from same B to same A and back and not have to pay the toll (which is what the rebate would mean).

If that does not clash with the free movement, it clashes with the non discrimination elements of the treaties.

 

[luiz]

A lot of countries have tolls that their citizens have to pay to go from one city to another. This has nothing to do with limiting free movement, it has to do with making road users pay for it maintenance and expansion, instead of all of society. Road users can be foreign or national.

 

[innonimatu]

Most likely we're looking at a concession, for a limited number of years, where some private operator deals with the mechanics of collecting the tolls, maintaining the roads and etc, and pays a fee to the government, which in turn obliges the private operator to maintain minimum standards and regulates the fee. Probably a better idea than having public servants doing all that.

And how, technically, could that be true?

 

[uppi]

More people would end up with more money, hence it would be more popular than not. It's simple: say the tolls collect 100 per year. This money comes from both Germans and foreigners. But the government institutes a tax cut of 100 that goes exclusively to Germans. Hence there is a net positive impact for Germans.

It is not that simple. Let us assume that it would be possible to give everyone an unrelated tax cut of 100 per year (there are obvious problems with that, because there is a significant number of people paying no direct taxes). But more than 20% of the people do not own a car and so would only get the rebate but not pay the toll. The contributions of foreigners might amount to around 10%, so you need every car owner to pay 110 so that the whole scheme is revenue neutral. So most people (80%) people pay more than before and might be upset with the party that introduced this scheme.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I understand that in principle these are two different issues.
If that does not clash with the free movement, it clashes with the non discrimination elements of the treaties.

I thought you were against the EU setting rules and regulations for the entire EU ? Sovereignty of each Nation to set up its own rules and all that
Germany as the biggest net contributor to the EU, I dont have a problem with tolls, I would rather Germany instead just not contribute so much to the EU and keep its own euromonies to build more autobahns

 

[Terxpahseyton]

So just for your information: There will be no private investors. Let alone outright privatization. Just read it in the news and can't be bothered to look for an English source.

Carry on.

 

[Hygro]

Score for Germany.

 

[Tahuti]

So just for your information: There will be no private investors. Let alone outright privatization. Just read it in the news and can't be bothered to look for an English source.

Carry on.

Where? The link I've posted doesn't work any longer, so we can't read the article.