Access to the D1 highway section from Trnava to Bratislava. (source: TASR)
Next year, motorists will pay €90 for a 365-day highway sticker. The cost of a single-day highway sticker will also rise to €8.10.
Today, drivers pay €60 for the 365-day highway sticker and €5.40 for the single-day highway sticker.
“Ninety euros is the amount we deemed acceptable for motorists. Compared to neighbouring countries such as the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia, this remains the lowest 365-day sticker fee,” stated the Transport Ministry, as quoted by the TASR news agency.
This adjustment is part of a consolidation measure that still requires parliamentary approval, where Robert Fico’s government holds a majority.
Conversely, the price of a 10-day sticker will decrease from €12 to €10.80, while a one-month sticker will cost €17.10. This measure is expected to generate approximately €35 million for the state budget.
However, as the Sme newspaper notes, Andrej Danko, leader of the far-right Slovak National Party and one of the current coalition leaders, previously campaigned for the abolition of highway vignettes before the early 2020 elections. He argued that people should not pay for highways that are not yet completed, making it a key theme of his campaign.
Danko even conducted a Facebook poll asking people whether they supported or opposed the abolition of highway vignettes. Of more than the 16,000 respondents, 15,000 were against the idea.
“Facebook has proven to be a waste of time,” Danko commented on the poll results. He explained that people from America and Africa could vote, which skewed the results.
Today, Danko asserts that the state needs revenue from highway vignettes but still considers their existence “nonsense”, given that the highway network is incomplete.
In Slovakia, no new highway stretch was opened this year. In addition, there is still no highway connection between Bratislava and Košice, the second largest city in the country.
At the time of Slovakia’s accession to the European Union in 2004, there were 322 kilometres of highways and 78 kilometres of dual carriageways in operation, Index writes. Today, there are 545 kilometres of highways and 320 kilometres of dual carriageways. Over the past two decades, Slovakia has thus added an average of only 23 kilometres of new highways each year.
