Enforcing fines from foreign drivers, who travel without tolls on toll roads, should become possible in Slovakia soon. The European system EUCARIS enables some of the fining process, but only from certain countries and only for specific traffic offences. Using the highways without paying toll has not been among them.
"Each country would send the fines to the offenders' addresses, and 80% of these offenders would pay the fine, so the state would have to deal with only 20% of the unpaid fines. Slovakia could have been dealing with the situation this way, but it hasn't", says the transport analyst Jozef Drahovský.
Therefore, Slovakia loses on the missing enforcement of fines from those, who do not pay the toll despite use the highways, several million euros per year.
"I am pleased that all transport ministers have agreed to enforce traffic fines within the EU data exchange system and negotiations with the European Parliament are over now. The problem has been solved thanks to the joint pressure of Slovakia, Austria and other states that have an electronic system of highway tolls," said Slovak Transport Minister Árpád Érsek. Érsek initiated meetings on this topic as early as 2016.
The transition period will now begin during which countries that are not yet in EUCARIS are involved in the system and transpose the Directive into their legislation. The actual launching of the system in all EU Member States will take for approximately two years.
The use of Slovak motorways is condition by the holding of the electronic vignette. These vignettes may be bought through the internet, in specified shops or at the filling station.
