EVERY winter, northern Europeans bound for ski holidays zip insouciantly through the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany on motorways that are free of charge. But near the borders of Austria or Switzerland they must pull over to buy stickers so that they can drive on the Alpine motorways—even as Austrian and Swiss cars zoom in the opposite direction onto Germany’s free Autobahn. To the perceived injustices in the European Union (EU), add another: the nuisances of a quilt of road-tolls.
Bavarians are particularly cranky. If you live in Munich, say, work and play extend naturally across the border. Hence the grousing about paying on Austrian roads while Austrians “free-ride” on Bavarian ones. In 2013 the CSU, a regional party that governs Bavaria, made fixing “this unfair situation” a condition for joining the coalition of the chancellor, Angela Merkel. The CSU’s Alexander Dobrindt, who became transport minister, got to work.
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