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Anastasia Balezdrova

More and more Greeks refuse to pay tolls when traveling on the highways in the country. According to some estimates 60% of the drivers when they arrive at the situated on the road cash desks they get down from their cars, raise the barriers themselves and continue their journey without paying.

Traveling on motorways in Greece is paid and the fees are collected by companies concessionaires. The refusal of thousands of citizens to pay these amounts caused serious headaches for the companies which see their finances decrease. In recent days, publications in many newspapers appeared, which mention that "according to the expertise of the Commission for the Protection of personal data companies that manage the five major road axes in the country will be able to use the photos of the drivers who refused to pay and cause the issuance of orders for payment. In today's edition of Eleftherotypia, however, was posted the text sent by the Commission to the competent department. It gives the Ministry of Infrastructure the right to provide data of the drivers who have refused to pay to the companies concessionaires, but it does not include the use of photographs, which are necessary to prove illegality and the imposition of a fine.

The continuously growing movement whose motto is "We do not pay toll - free roads for all" is already organized in local committees "for residents, workers and citizens to fight against tolls". For them, as well as for the forthcoming "raise" of all road barriers in the coming Sunday we spoke with Joseph Papadopoulos, member of the coordinating committee of the movement.

How and when was your movement initiated?

The movement has existed for more than a year now. Many of our fellow citizens had stopped paying tolls each one separately. The initiative for the creation of a movement came from the Committee of Afidnes (a village about 20 km away from Athens – author’s note). These people live in and around Afidnes and work in Athens. On a daily bases they pay in both directions around 4 euros. Ie they paid 100 per month and 1200 per year just to get to their work places and back.

The initiative started from there, but we are already many people who believe that we have paid for roads, and we have done it thousands of times. We believe that private companies cannot  be entitled to use and benefit from roads that are public goods. Therefore, we refuse to pay tolls.

How many people participate in the local committees?

I can not give you an exact number. Anyway we are talking about many people. Committees were established throughout the country. The mobilization is very high. In the coming Sunday we will raise barriers at all the cash desks in the country. We will be in Athens at 16:00 at the cash desks in Afidnes.

In recent days we learned that the Commission for the Protection of personal data has allowed the Ministry to provide the companies concessionaires data for drivers who refuse to pay tolls. What is your stand on this issue?

First I would like to say that they had not been given any permission of this kind. An evidence for this is the fact that they do not present its content and protocol number. Yesterday we took part in a TV show together with a representative of one of the companies. We asked him about this decision, but failed to tell us anything specific.

But even if they had such permission in their hands, companies would still have not been able to do anything more than to ask for orders for payment to be issued in the amount of 20 times the toll fee based on their concession contracts. If we do not pay they threaten to enlist our names on the list of bankrupt and bad payers "Tiresias."

However, all this is nothing more than convulsive action. They can see what the size fo our movement has become and it scares them. They are losing revenues, banks are now refusing to grant them loans because, due to reduced revenues from tolls the companies are not able to issue guarantees. They are just trying to scare the people and make them pay taxes because they can not do anything else. The law from 2007, through which they were given a concession on the roads does not provide for any sanctions.

You personally, since when you do not pay tolls?

For more than 14 months, I don’t pay to any private toll cash desk. Throughout Greece there are only three cash desks, which are managed by the state. They are Malgara shortly before Thessaloniki, at the Egnatia highway and the underwater tunnel that connects Aktio with Preveza. There we do pay for no other reason but because otherwise an order for payment will be issued to us by the State Fund and we will have to pay anyway. We believe, however, that sooner or later those cash desks will be granted to private companies which now also have a small percentage of participation in them. When this happens, we will not pay there as well.

What is the attitude of the authorities towards the movement?

At this point, and based on the law from 2007 the state can not do anything. It chooses to stand aside and not intervene. The police can not intervene as well because the refusal to pay the toll is not a violation of the traffic or criminal offense. This is a purely civil dispute between private individuals and private companies. The only way fror them to require the amounts to be paid is to assert claims against drivers who do not pay at the cash registers. The reason that so far they have done nothing lies precisely in the fact that the law does not protect them. They have no legal basis, which obliges us to pay tolls.

How do you explain your stand?

We defend the right which the Constitution gives us to travel freely on the roads. As I already mentioned we have paid for them a thousand times, since the times of our parents and grandparents. Moreover, construction of the roads has not even been finished, although tolls are collected in advance. Let me mention for example the so-called main road Corinth-Patra. This is the most dangerous road in Europe in which hundreds of accidents happen. And yet there as well they require us to pay tolls, under the pretext that using these funds the road will be built. Nowhere in the world exists the practice of collecting fees before a road is built. Build it first and then let's see whether you have the right to collect toll fees.

Not to mention that the Greek roads do not meet EU requirements for imposing tolls. We also pay very high annual fees for the traffic. Why do we pay them? To be able to travel on the road.

In Germany, for example there is no toll for cars. They only apply for heavy-freight vehicles, because they cause damage to the asphalt. Toll are not collected neither in Holland nor in the Scandinavian countries. And the prices of the charges in Greece surpassed also those in Italy, where they were the highest, because their roads are in excellent condition. Ie our country leads the list for the highest tolls in Europe, while our revenues per capita are the lowest.

As far as I understand you do not intend to stop the protest.

Under no circumstances. We are determined not to pay toll ever again, regardless of what consequences that choice of ours could have. We also disregard completely the threats made to us by companies concessionaires in an attempt to make us pay. They benefit from the concession contracts, the state does nothing because it cannot do anything, and citizens are forced to pay all the time. The time has come, when we "woke up", we began to protest and we declare that "we won’t pay". This stand of ours is completely fair.