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Fico: There's No Scope For Lowering Excise Tax on Motor Fuels
Monday 04 January 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, January 4 (TASR) - There's no room for lowering the excise tax on motor fuels that the Slovak small and medium-sized transport companies ask for, said Premier Robert Fico at a press conference on Monday.
"They need to realise we're in the middle of global crisis. Their request is anything but relevant in light of the current financial situation," claimed Fico.
Ever since 2006, the Government hasn't raised the tax in question once, said Fico. "The prices of motor fuels are lower by 15-20 percent today than they were at the time we came to power," he added.
Fico considers the new electronic road-toll system, launched as of January 1, to be just. According to him, the trucks pay only for the distances travelled. Fico also deems equally important that the road-toll system applies to legal entities only, with private individuals still purchasing highway stickers at a price that has been long-term stable.
In order to promote the lowering of the excise tax, the carriers also launched an information and petition campaign on Monday. "We want the road tax to be significantly decreased as compensation for the introduction of the electronic road-toll system. That was the case in countries where the road-toll system has been applied," said spokesman of the newly-formed Union of Slovakia's Carriers (UNAS) Jaroslav Polacek on Saturday.
Due to the higher excise tax, drivers in Slovakia pay an average of 30 cents more for petrol and diesel than those in neighbouring countries. According to Polacek, the time has come for Fico to fulfil his pre-election promise. UNAS wants the Government to decrease the excise tax to the average level of neighbourhood countries, amounting to €0.371 per litre of petrol and €0.298 per litre of diesel.
UNAS also asks for the new road-toll system to be postponed. During the suspension of the system, according to UNAS, the Transport Ministry should revise the toll roads map to include only essential sections, due to the exclusion of transit travel from highways. The individual toll road sections should be divided into sections with more accurate measurement of kilometres actually travelled. "Carriers should be charged only with the actual distance travelled and not with the entire length of the road. The most expensive and modern GPS-GSM system must allow this," said Polacek.
The meeting between Transportation Minister Lubomir Vazny (a Smer-SD nominee) and the representatives of transport companies in late December yielded no results, as the ministry didn't accept any of their 11 requests.
"We have laws in effect, it's not in my power to postpone the launch of the electronic toll system. And then, even putting off the new system wouldn't bring any resolutions in my opinion," commented Vazny on the effort of the carriers to have introduction of the new road-toll system postponed to July 2010.
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