Road Transport - TO TAX OR NOT TO TAX?

For some months now the problem of motorways tolls is constantly coming into public attention since almost every guy in the Government or Parliament thinks he has an idea about it. During last weeks, the debated access fee continued to make it to the headlines: when taking his office, Transport Ministry Ludovic Orban mentioned he isn’t a supporter of the toll, because its introduction would mean the vignette has to go and there would be no more money for lower grade roads maintenance. A few days later, Septimiu Buzasu, secretary in the same ministry, announced that a toll might be introduced if the government chooses it over a shadow-toll system. In the end, officials said the toll would be just one Euro per hundred kilometers, which seemed an unlikely low level. Then, Prime-Minister Calin

Popescu Tariceanu entered the scene, explaining the ”one Euro toll“ as a method for keeping horse wagons out of the motorways. But just as the things seemed to be clear, the interim President put the toll back on shaky grounds: ”The Bucharest-Pitesti highway must be completely reworked and we can’t ask people to pay for driving on this route“...

The end of this ”toll soap opera“ is thus up in the air.