Illegal fines for hundreds of thousands of European citizens in the UK

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency quoting Since Brexit, a large number of EU drivers in London, the UK capital, have been hit with sometimes unusually high fines, according to the Tagus Anseiger newspaper.

In this way, a new front is emerging in the difficult relationship between the EU and the UK, and hundreds of thousands of illegal fines have been collected from EU citizens.

This issue It’s about vehicles that were driving in London’s ultra-low emission zone. The use of heavy vehicles and diesel engines is prohibited there, and anyone who wants to drive them in these areas must be registered in advance. Apparently, the license plates of the cars that were traveling in these areas were saved and given to a private company to collect fines. Since leaving the European Union, British authorities have been banned from collecting information on EU citizens.

According to the Guardian, five EU countries – Belgium, Germany , Spain, France and the Netherlands – have therefore taken legal action against the London authorities. As of 2021, over 320,000 citizens of these countries have been unfairly fined, sometimes amounting to thousands of pounds.

Another problem is that many Of the drivers who were prosecuted and found guilty, they had committed no offense at all, but were wrongly classified as guilty by the system. For example, a French driver was fined around £25,000 even though his minibus was properly registered and complied with the guidelines.

At the center of the controversy is Euro. There is a parking lot. The company specializes in overseas fine collection and is based in England and Wales. British authorities handed over hundreds of thousands of data files to Europarking. It is alleged that Euro Parkin deliberately circumvents data protection regulations by using EU-based agencies to request driver data without disclosing that it is being used to collect fines in the UK.

Michael Freilich, a representative of the Belgian Parliament, has taken up the case because of his injured compatriots and has been very harsh in his criticism. In this regard, he said: London is exploiting EU citizens as “cash cows”, the current situation is “probably one of the biggest breaches of privacy and data protection in the history of the European Union”, but so far no concrete action has been taken. It has not happened, instead the responsibility of the drivers has been assigned to them.

In France, more than 100 injured people have filed a complaint against the London authorities. Various truck drivers from the Netherlands are also taking action against the 6.5 million pound fines imposed by the authorities of this country. Spain has also condemned the illegal use of tens of thousands of data files belonging to its citizens; According to the Guardian, there are about 55,000 such cases in the Netherlands. Belgium and Germany have also taken action against the illegal use of tens of thousands of personal data. The spokesperson of the Liberal Democrats in the Parliament of the City of London has demanded a quick clarification of this issue, but on the other hand, this city is at risk of destroying the tourism industry.

Euro parking is also from It has defended itself against these accusations and announced that when requesting owner information in EU countries, Europarking clears that it will act on behalf of the London authorities to apply road tolls in London. The company announced that it was not blocked from accessing the information of the owners of drivers in EU countries.

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