2024-09-21 12:18:30
From January, drivers in Slovakia will pay extra for the highway stamp. The annual fee will now be 90 euros (about 2,200 crowns). Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenický (Smér-SD) called it an acceptable amount for motorists. However, Slovak media point out that the price increase comes in a year during which not a single kilometer of new highway was added in the country.
The Slovak newspaper SME pointed out that the only section that was supposed to be open by the end of this year will not be completed on time. It is 5.6 kilometers between Tvrdošín and Nižna.
When Slovakia joined the European Union in 2004, 322 kilometers of highways and 78 kilometers of expressways were in operation. Currently, there are 545 kilometers of highways and 320 kilometers of expressways. Over the past two decades, an average of 23 kilometers has been added annually.
In Slovakia, for example, there is still no highway connection between the two largest cities, Bratislava and Košice. At the same time, in 2007 Fico (Smér-SD) as prime minister promised that it would be finished by 2010, otherwise it would be necessary to “draw political responsibility from it”, the newspaper SME recalled his words.
The increase in the price of the highway stamp from the current 60 euros (about 1,500 crowns) was announced by State Secretary of the Ministry of Transport Igor Choma on Wednesday after the government meeting. This is one of Fico’s cabinet measures to improve the state of public finances. The price increase should bring 35 million euros (880 million crowns) to the budget, which the Ministry of Transport wants to invest in the construction of highways. The consolidation package also includes an increase in the basic VAT rate from the current 20 to 23 percent.
The leader of the strongest opposition movement Progressive Slovakia, Michal Šimečka, called the measures “a massive cost to Fico for everyone”. According to him, the government is “making fun” of people. “Every day we pay extra for lunches, gas, tolls, clothes, drugstore or books,” he said.
State Secretary Choma claims that compared to neighboring countries such as the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovenia, this is still the lowest price for an annual highway stamp. He called the fact that the coupon does not apply to highway bypasses of large cities, which is about 200 kilometers, or approximately a quarter of the total highway network, a relief for drivers.
In the Czech Republic, the price of a highway stamp has risen to 2,300 crowns since March of this year, there are currently 1,388 kilometers of highways and almost a hundred more are expected to be added by the end of this year. In Slovakia, drivers have roughly 500 kilometers of highways at their disposal.
The newspaper SME compared the ratio of the price of the highway stamp to the number of kilometers in other countries as well – Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Austria. Out of the six countries, Romania is the best based on this comparison, where drivers can “buy” 35.9 kilometers of highways for one euro, in the case of Slovakia, the amount is to be increased by six kilometers. Slovenia came out the worst in the comparison.
SME also reminds that there are on average eleven kilometers of highways for every thousand square kilometers of Slovakia. Romanians or Bulgarians have less. For example, in the Netherlands and Belgium it is about sixty kilometers of highways, in Germany it is 37 kilometers.
In this comparison, Slovakia also lags behind its neighbors. For example, in Hungary the density of highways is up to twice as high, with ninety kilometers of highways per thousand square meters, and eighteen kilometers in the Czech Republic.