Germany adopted on 8 June 2015 a law introducing a road charging scheme for cars. At the same time, it passed a law ensuring that vehicles registered in Germany benefit from a deduction of the road charge from the annual vehicle tax bill. This will lead to a de facto exemption from the charge for cars registered in Germany - and only for those cars. The Commission's main concerns are on indirect discrimination based on nationality.
Two features lead to such discrimination. The first is the fact that, effectively, German users – and only those - will not pay the road charge because their vehicle tax bill will be reduced by the exact amount of the charge. The second is that the price of short term vignettes, which are typically bought by foreign users, is disproportionally high.
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