An agreement has just been reached between the three main European bodies (Commission, Council and Parliament) on the Eurovignette dossier. This agreement follows the vote on the first reading by the Parliament, which had approved the report by Belgian Said El Khadraoui on April 11th.

The tripartite agreement adds a few modifications to this report. The principal one of these involves the possibility of leaving it open to member states to exempt vehicles of under 12 tonnes from the future taxes, whereas the report included all vehicles of over 3.5 tonnes. According to ecological association Transport Environment, it was which applied pressure for this modification.

The period during which the least polluting (Euro 6) vehicles will be exempt from the ‘external costs’ element is increased from three to four years.