A preliminary opinion from the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has handed Vienna an important – if still provisional – victory in its long-running dispute with Rome over heavy-goods traffic on the Brenner corridor. In his conclusions, published on 24 July 2026, Advocate General Athanasios Rantos found that the so-called “Blockabfertigung” (block-release) system operated by the Tyrolean authorities does not, in itself, violate EU rules on the free movement of goods. Block-release allows Austrian police to meter lorry traffic at Kufstein in the early morning hours after public-holiday bans, letting only around 300 trucks per hour proceed towards the A13 Brenner motorway. While Tirol argues the measure is essential to prevent hours-long tailbacks, Italy claims it merely exports congestion north of the border and has sued Austria at the CJEU. The Advocate General agreed that member states may adopt proportionate traffic-management measures to protect the environment and road safety, and said Italy had failed to prove that Austrian officers enforce a hard numerical cap rather than a speed restriction. Should the Court follow the opinion later this year – it does so in roughly 80 % of cases – Austria will be able to keep the 30 pre-announced block-release days scheduled for 2026. However, the opinion also sides with Italy on three subsidiary points: the Tyrolean night ban for trucks over 7.5 t, the Saturday winter ban for Italy-bound HGVs, and a ban on road transport of rail-compatible goods all appear disproportionate. Those provisions may therefore have to be withdrawn or redesigned. For logistics planners the stakes are high. A favourable ruling would lock in the regimented early-morning truck queues that German shippers say create jams up to 40 km long on the A8 and A93, but which Austrian authorities credit with averting gridlock in the Inn Valley. Companies exporting to or through northern Italy should therefore brace for another holiday season of slot allocation, mandatory reservation systems and tight driver rest-time calculations. Conversely, if the Court ultimately strikes down the measure, Tirol will need alternative tools – such as dynamic tolling or obligatory rail piggy-backing – to manage the 2.5 million HGVs that cross the Brenner every year. Practically, mobility managers are advised to: (1) keep monitoring the Tyrolean “Dosierkalender” for ad-hoc block days; (2) pre-book rail freight capacity on the “Rolling Highway” where possible; and (3) alert drivers to potential carry-over queues on the German side at Kiefersfelden. Multinationals with time-critical supply chains should also revisit contingency routings via the Tauern or Gotthard corridors, mindful of the increased kilometre cost and driver hours such detours entail.
Source: Tagesschau
