“This tax is similar to a production tax,” vilified Sébastien Muller, president of the Regional Association of Food Industries (ARIA). “There is indeed a transit problem”, with trucks crossing the region, where the highway is almost free, but does not serve it. “But we are against the taxation of the Alsatian economy, our products and therefore the consumer.”
Voted unanimously in October by the elected officials of the European community of Alsace (CEA), this eco-contribution plans to impose a tax of 0.15 euros per kilometer for trucks of more than 3.5 tonnes circulating on the North-South axis (A35 and A36) and on two other roads connecting this axis to Germany.
“If we want to produce something, at one point it takes trucks. This tax goes against the reindustrialisation of the territory,” denounced Fabrice Urban, representative of the Union of Metallurgy Industries and Trades. “He will strike local businesses up to 32 million euros per year, it is not nothing, to fight against a nuisance that we have not created, with an efficiency which we can doubt.”
“There is still a long way to go,” said David Roemer, vice-president of the National Federation of Road Transport (FNTR), who brought an appeal before the Council of State against certain provisions of the Climate & Resilience law, which authorizes the establishment of such a tax.
High pollution
The president of the CEA, Frédéric Bierry (LR), on the contrary praised a “quality” consultation to “optimize exemptions, especially for crafts”, and on the implementation “of direct aid” to economic actors, for example to green the fleet of vehicles.
“All of the revenues will benefit the Alsatian economy,” he guaranteed. “While at Vinci (which exploits the bypass of Strasbourg), the tax finances shareholders. We finance, with this recipe, the Alsatian economy and Alsatian public services.”
The calendar is “maintained,” he said. “Today, Alsatians can no longer the level of noise pollution, atmospheric, generated by this foreign transit. This is what has given birth to this tax.”
