In Ukraine, legislation on toll roads is planned to be adopted by the end of 2027. This is to be done under an agreement with the EU. However, this does not mean that "we will not need to establish a specific toll road next year." This was reported by Serhii Derkach, First Deputy Minister for Restoration, Infrastructure and Transport of Ukraine, in the podcast "What's Going on with the Economy?", published on November 7, UNN writes.
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"A good and recently debatable question about toll roads. First, the possibility of launching toll roads is a mandatory criterion of the European Union and is part, so to speak, of European Union legislation. And we, as a country, are obliged to establish a legal framework and the possibility of launching toll roads," the deputy minister said.
According to him, this concerns toll roads "not for all transport, but the European Union says that commercial transport must pay for roads." "That is, trucks, for example, and buses. This does not necessarily apply to all vehicles," he added.
"The country can say, introduce rules and say: 'All vehicles pay for the road in one case or another, or under one option or another.' This is the first point. This concerns the legal framework," Derkach noted.
We are currently working on a draft law. In accordance with the agreement with the European Commission, under which we have undertaken commitments, it must be adopted by parliament by the end of next year. That is, by the end of next year, we must definitely have a law stating that toll roads may be created in Ukraine. That's one thing
"Second, how to implement the toll-road mechanism itself. There may be several options here," he continued.
"For example, a road could be built using a public-private partnership instrument. Then the company that built the road receives payment for travel on that road for a certain period of time and effectively recoups its investment, while the state in fact spends nothing. This is a good case, but at present, for Ukraine, I think it is unrealistic. Precisely at present. Because we are not yet ready for, so to speak, such an instrument, including because there are many roads that need to be reconstructed rather than built from scratch, for example, in parallel," Derkach pointed out.
"Of course, there is an idea of imposing a special fee on all carriers, commercial carriers, for example, that travel on Ukraine's roads. As a general fee. At present, carriers and motorists still pay through a portion of the excise duty on fuel, but once again, this mechanism is not working well enough because we effectively do not have a special road fund in the state budget. Therefore, there must be a clear logic here: the money actually paid for using the roads must go toward roads—that is, their repair, maintenance and construction—because it makes no sense for us to pay for roads while the roads are not being expanded or developed," he noted.
"Therefore, I think that first of all, we definitely need to build a legal mechanism, and then, technically, how this will be implemented, I think we will find the right time. We agreed with the European Commission that we will not need to establish a specific toll road next year. It will be enough for us simply to adopt a law that will allow us to consider how we will technically implement this further," Derkach said.