Austria's restrictions on heavy goods vehicles along the key Brenner motorway route violate European Union law, an advocate general at the European Court of Justice concluded in a legal opinion released Thursday.
Advocate General Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona found the nighttime ban, winter ban, and sectoral freight restriction on the A12 Inntal and A13 Brenner motorways in Tyrol to be unlawful. The opinion stems from a lawsuit Italy filed against Austria roughly two years ago, arguing the measures illegally restricted the free movement of goods. However, the advocate general deemed Austria's block-clearance system — which caps truck access at 300 vehicles per hour — to be legally permissible.
Traffic on the Brenner route continues to grow, with toll data from the Schönberg station showing 6.57 million vehicles in the first half of the year, a 2.3 percent increase, while truck traffic rose nearly 3.6 percent. Authorities expect the Brenner Base Tunnel to ease congestion in coming years. Advocate general opinions are non-binding but frequently guide the court's final rulings.