Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen: Transit fee in addition to vignette fee

Pressmeddelande 280/2008
8.8.2008

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen is satisfied with the government decision to impose vignette fees on heavy highway traffic, which will be compensated to domestic haulers by lowering the vehicle tax. With help of these arrangements, foreign and domestic transport companies will be given more equal positions. Väyrynen believes that the vignette fee can be introduced as early as next year.

Minister Väyrynen remarks that the vignette fee is not an alternative to the planned fees on the use of lorry parking areas or other fees imposed specifically on transit transport that the government will handle later. He considers introduction of these fees important as well.

Minister Väyrynen emphasises that the goal should not be to reduce transit transport, but to arrange it in a way that it would cause as little problems as possible. On the other hand, the fees imposed on transit transport should equal the costs and harm caused by such traffic. Therefore, among the key measures are arrangements by which the waiting and parking areas for vehicles hauling goods back and forth are located primarily in the harbours or their near vicinity.

Väyrynen points out that, thanks to the tax relief introduced by the government, the payment of customs subsidies for the forestry industry does not seem necessary. On the other hand, the loss of State income caused by the tax relief is another factor speaking for the introduction of fees imposed on transit traffic as an additional source of income to balance the national economy.

Further information: Special Adviser Ossi Martikainen, tel. +358 40 592 6769