Brenner transit: Wissing is pushing for the end of the driving bans. – Bavaria

In the ongoing transport policy dispute with the Austrian state of Tyrol, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) declares his support for the Bavarian position. “I’ve been pushing for months for a solution to the conflict on the Brenner Transit route. It is urgent that Austria’s unilateral traffic-restricting measures be abolished,” Wissing told SZ. That’s why he supports a proposal by the European Commission that “provides for Austria to gradually lift the traffic-restricting measures.”

According to Wissing, this should be flanked by “forward-looking measures” for rail and road. “We now have the real opportunity to end the conflict amicably. If Austria and Italy also agree, the way is clear for a good overall package of solutions.” A meeting of all those involved should therefore take place in the coming months.

The three states and their federal states of Bavaria, Tyrol and South Tyrol have been working on solutions for years, so far without any tangible results. The trigger for the dispute is the Tyrolean attempt to protect its own population along the Inntal and Brenner autobahns with truck driving bans from excessive transit traffic. The truck block handling at the border near Kiefersfelden should also serve this purpose, where the Tyrol only allows trucks into the country one after the other. For the first half of 2023 alone, Tyrol has announced two dozen of these “truck dosages”. They always result in long tailbacks in Bavaria, some of which extend far beyond the Inntal triangle onto the A8. The state government is not only criticizing the Tyrolean measures because of this, but also sees the Bavarian economy as being handicapped. According to its own statement, the new black-red state government in Tyrol wants to maintain the driving bans and block handling. A new South Tyrolean feasibility study on bookable truck passage rights on the Brenner corridor between Munich and Verona is viewed in Innsbruck as a further development of block handling.

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