As of: March 13, 2024, 4:08 p.m
By: Richard Strobl, Sandra Sporer
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Flashed while on vacation in Italy?
The EU now wants to take action against cross-border traffic violations.
© Collage: IMAGO / Pond5 Images // IMAGO / YAY Images
Parked incorrectly while on vacation?
This could soon become expensive.
A new EU regulation is intended to ensure that fines are also collected across borders.
Strasbourg - If a fine notice from the holiday destination awaits you when you return from vacation, it's not a pleasant surprise.
However, the following applies: Fines from abroad also have to be paid in Germany.
However, it has often happened that the notices could not be delivered at all.
Currently, around 40 percent of cross-border violations are not punished, as the European Parliament announced on the night of March 13th.
The EU states are now striving to change this situation and plan to improve cooperation.
EU presents regulations for more cooperation in collecting fines from abroad
According to Parliament, the agreement stipulates that the authorities in the home country of traffic offenders will in future be able to collect fines and penalties imposed in other countries.
This assumes that the state in which the offense was committed requests it, the sanction is more than 70 euros and all other legal avenues have already been exhausted.
Private companies should be prohibited from collecting fines from foreigners.
It also expands a list of traffic violations that can trigger cross-border proceedings and lead to fines for dangerous driving.
These violations include:
Over the speed limit
Driving under the influence of alcohol
Dangerous parking
Dangerous overtaking
Hit and run
Disregard for solid lines
In Germany, administrative offenses are punishable by a fine; fines are imposed by courts in accordance with the Criminal Code and are based on the income of the perpetrator.
New EU regulations on fines from abroad still have to be approved by Parliament
In this regard, an agreement was reached between the negotiators of Parliament and the EU states in order to strengthen the administrative assistance procedures between the countries.
This agreement was also confirmed by the EU countries.
It still needs to be officially approved by Parliament and national ministers, which is a formality in most cases.
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After approval by the EU states and parliament, the new provisions still have to be implemented into national law.
A transition period of 30 months is provided for this.
Work is currently underway at EU level to ensure that driving bans and the revocation of driving licenses are enforced across the EU.
Negotiations on this project are still ongoing.
Many of Germany's neighboring countries have significantly tightened their penalties for traffic offenses in recent years.
In Italy, among others, hefty fines of several hundred euros are now being imposed.
A specific violation can even cost you up to 345 euros.
The editor wrote this article and then used an AI language model for optimization at his own discretion. All information has been carefully checked.
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