The next time the Tyroleans will close down in a week, on April 26, early in the morning after the day of liberation in Italy. Up on the Brenner from the direction of South Tyrol and down on the Inntal autobahn near Kufstein, there will be block handling for trucks again, as the Tyroleans’ “dosing calendar” envisages for a total of 43 days this year. In the Inn valley, the waiting trucks will then back up far into Bavaria, possibly beyond the Inn valley triangle to the A 8, as so often in the past six years.
Bavaria and South Tyrol, who are currently working with their neighbors on such a solution, have also accepted that Tyrol will continue with these block handlings until a solution is found for the excessive truck traffic over the Brenner Pass. However, the federal governments in Rome and Berlin, which are actually responsible for international agreements, do not want to know too much about the announced proposal.
The three heads of government of Bavaria, Tyrol and South Tyrol staged their meeting in Kufstein last week as a kind of alpine peace summit in transport policy. In the meantime, however, Italy’s Transport Minister Matteo Salvini has had the right-wing Lega inform the Italian media that he will not even discuss the proposal for digitally bookable passage rights for trucks on the Brenner route until Austria and Tyrol stop block processing and the various truck Abolish driving bans on certain days and for certain goods. However, the Tyrolean governor Anton Mattle (ÖVP) had expressly ruled this out with his South Tyrolean colleague Arno Kompatscher (SVP) and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) last week. If necessary, Tyrol could also introduce the slot system on its own, but firstly the local transport councilor René Zumtobel (SPÖ) stated that it does not make sense, and secondly the responsible Viennese minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) has already signaled approval.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has so far tended towards Salvini’s attitude. According to Wissing’s ministry, they welcome “any agreement that brings about an actual improvement in the difficult traffic situation on the Brenner Pass”. However, the free movement of goods would then have to be “actually and sustainably improved”. “Systems that continue block processing using digitization do not change the principle of quota allocation.”
This is aimed at a central point that was left open in the declaration of intent by the Alpine federal states, namely the question of whether there should be an upper limit for truck transit with the slot system, which would correspond to Tyrol’s wish, but not the previous attitude of Bavaria. One continues to work and will talk to Wissing “and see that we make progress there,” said Bavaria’s Minister of Transport Christin Bernreiter (CSU) on Tuesday. In any case, Salvini said “sometimes like this. It always sounds outwardly, but the South Tyroleans are already on it. I think everyone is interested in a solution”.