MEPs demand EC proposes tolls on trucks to curb CO2 emissions

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After seeing the European Commission’s Energy Directorate reject a proposal to introduce truck tolls based on vehicles’ CO2 emissions, a group of MEPs have written a joint letter to transport commissioner Violeta Bulc requesting that the transport directorate propose the tolls instead. The argument is pretty straightforward: trucks are said to account for about a quarter of European transport CO2 emissions, and while car and light van emissions are quite strictly controlled, trucks are not so. A toll would level the playing field, especially if it were graded on how polluting a particular vehicle is. But the move is likely to be resisted in the EC’s upper echelons: “Frans Timmermans, EU vice president in charge of better regulation, has resisted adjusting road charges. In the Netherlands, where Timmermans is from, there are sensitivities about road charges because of the country’s lucrative freight industry.”