Greeks not paying for toll roads now.
Discussion
It's becoming a farce, German company builds the infrastructure but staff just nodding friends through, full story:
Greece’s toll roads have become an unlikely flashpoint in the financial skirmishing between the sick economy of the eurozone and its unwanted saviour, Germany.
It has emerged that the Greek austerity resitance movement whose slogan is “we won’t pay”, has extended from simply refusing to pay taxes to the unfortunate fall-out from the country’s drivers declining to pay up at the toll booths of the country’s motorways.
Recent months of Greek toll aversion has come at a huge cost to Hochtief which runs two of Greece’s biggest pay-to-drive motorway schemes. Hochtief is a symbol of Germany’s post war commercial expansionism, one of the country’s most successful construction and infrastructure companies. In Britain it is best known for building parts of the Channel Tunnel rail link.
Yesterday however its shares slumped nearly 11 per cent on the Deutsche Borse, the Frankfurt stock exchange, after the company admitted it is likely to have to write down the value of its share of its €2.2 billion Greek roadbuilding consortium because of the mass road-toll dodging movement.
Hochtief is part of a consortium which has constructed motorways between Maliakos and Kleidi linking Athens and Thessalonika and the 225-mile Elefsina-Patras-Tsakona toll road into and out of the Greek capital. In a statement the company said: “The economic crisis in Greece and persistent mass toll dodging has led to major shortfalls in income development for the toll road projects.”
The actual process of toll dodging appears to be nothing more sophisticated than drivers either lifting up the barrier at the toll road to pass through, or dismantling the barrier altogether. Toll booth collectors appear to have let cars through with nothing more than a shrug.
The wider “we won’t pay” movement embraces small business people refusing to pay their taxes and people declining to pay for their tickets on public transport.
There is a further irony to Hochtief being a victim of the campaign. Although a stoutly German company, Hochtief has since last year been controlled by the Spanish infrastructure company ACS, in a rare example of a major German company falling into foreign hands.
Greece’s toll roads have become an unlikely flashpoint in the financial skirmishing between the sick economy of the eurozone and its unwanted saviour, Germany.
It has emerged that the Greek austerity resitance movement whose slogan is “we won’t pay”, has extended from simply refusing to pay taxes to the unfortunate fall-out from the country’s drivers declining to pay up at the toll booths of the country’s motorways.
Recent months of Greek toll aversion has come at a huge cost to Hochtief which runs two of Greece’s biggest pay-to-drive motorway schemes. Hochtief is a symbol of Germany’s post war commercial expansionism, one of the country’s most successful construction and infrastructure companies. In Britain it is best known for building parts of the Channel Tunnel rail link.
Yesterday however its shares slumped nearly 11 per cent on the Deutsche Borse, the Frankfurt stock exchange, after the company admitted it is likely to have to write down the value of its share of its €2.2 billion Greek roadbuilding consortium because of the mass road-toll dodging movement.
Hochtief is part of a consortium which has constructed motorways between Maliakos and Kleidi linking Athens and Thessalonika and the 225-mile Elefsina-Patras-Tsakona toll road into and out of the Greek capital. In a statement the company said: “The economic crisis in Greece and persistent mass toll dodging has led to major shortfalls in income development for the toll road projects.”
The actual process of toll dodging appears to be nothing more sophisticated than drivers either lifting up the barrier at the toll road to pass through, or dismantling the barrier altogether. Toll booth collectors appear to have let cars through with nothing more than a shrug.
The wider “we won’t pay” movement embraces small business people refusing to pay their taxes and people declining to pay for their tickets on public transport.
There is a further irony to Hochtief being a victim of the campaign. Although a stoutly German company, Hochtief has since last year been controlled by the Spanish infrastructure company ACS, in a rare example of a major German company falling into foreign hands.
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