Embassies refuse Congestion Charge...

...get the tube like the rest of us

Well I haven't posted here in a while, & I'm still in the middle of a rather manic few weeks but this caught my eye in the London News the other day & really gets my back up!

Apparently the US Embassy, located in central London, is refusing to pay the Congestion Charge on the grounds that it is a tax & therefore should be exempt under Diplomatic law stated in the Vienna convention.

The congestion charge has been in force since 17 Feb 2003 & was a nice round £5 for cars entering the heavily congested city centre. Now the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has recently put the price up to £8, which is an increase far ahead of inflation and he is planning to extend the area which it covers - so it's not entirely surprising peope are unwilling to pay. (Though if it was up to me, it would be even more for overtly unnecessary vehicles like big American trucks and 4x4's!)

If I had the misfortune of having to drive into the city centre then I would most likely grumble about the charge too, but I wouldn't refuse to pay it & instead would look at the other option of public transport. This after all is the whole reasoning behind the charge - to encourage people onto public transport for a cleaner and less congested London.

Presumably the Embassy has been happily paying the charge for the last two years so why should they decide they are exempt now since it is going up? Maybe they will ask for a back payment too! The German Embassy has jumped on the bandwagon too & is using the Vienna convention as a get out clause to taking any responsibility for the environmental condition of London.

It seems to me the Embassy is picking and choosing to heed conventions or rules that suit them, and blindly refusing to accept any other responsibilities when it comes to helping congestion or environmental issues. After all if they are so keen on the Vienna convention, why not the Kyoto Protocol or other treaties? As ePolitix.com rightly points out "The Americans are quite happy to cite the Vienna convention, but are all too willing to play fast and loose when it comes to the Geneva convention."

So is it really a tax? According to the good old Wikipedia "A tax is a compulsory charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (e.g., tribes, secessionist movements or revolutionary movements)". The USAToday already quotes a spokesperson for TFL which answers the question - If you don't drive in, you don't pay so the choice is there for all employeees of the Embassy. (Quite how or why they manage to bring the Boston Tea party into the story is anyone's guess! )

As far as I'm aware, foreign diplomats are not exempt from toll road charges in the USA so why should the rules be bent for them here ?

tags: embassy, congestion charge