Serbia would equal the price of highway tolls for local and foreign vehicles this week, ending a row with Athens which has left dozens of Serbian haulers stranded in Greece, the Beta news agency reported Monday.
Quoting the Infrastructure Minister Milutin Mrkonjic, it said the Serbian government would formalize the decision at a regular meeting on Thursday.
Mrkonjic said Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoynni - in Belgrade on Monday as the head of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe - would immediately be informed of the decision, reported dpa.
Some 150 Serbian truckers were stranded both on the border and in Greece Sunday, as Athens refused to extend their permits to February in protest at the highway toll charges for foreign drivers.
Belgrade did not level the toll for all traffic since 2002, when it signed a treaty committing itself to do so.
Sitting at the heart of the Balkans and straddling the shortest road route between Western Europe and the Middle East, Serbia has in the past charged foreign vehicles in transit up to 14 times as much as local vehicles, in a practice outlawed in the European Union.
Until the new rule comes into effect, a Serbian trucker would still pay 6,440 dinars (87 dollars) for transit through Serbia on the Zagreb-Belgrade-Thessaloniki highway, while a foreigner would pay 12,160, according to information of the national drivers organization (www.amss.rs). dpa bb jbl