BERLIN, Dec. 17-- German federal government on Wednesday approved a draft law to charge car drivers for using its highways, in a bid to collect funds from foreign drivers for renovating its aging infrastructure.

According to the law, all drivers using German highways, including its currently free autobahn, would be levied toll from 2016. Drivers with German registered cars, however, would be compensated by a deduction in their vehicle taxes with the same amount of the toll they paid.

Currently, only heavy trucks are charged for using German roads.

German Transportation Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the plan aimed at modernizing transportation infrastructure and transforming the maintenance from tax-financing to users-financing.

He expected around 3.7 billion euros (about 4.6 billion U.S. dollars) to be collected per year, among them around 700 million euros from foreign car owners. Deducting system costs and tax offset, a net income of 500 million euros could be raised a year.

The plan draw criticism from the European Union which accused it of discriminating foreign drivers.

Dobrindt, however, insisted that the plan was "fair" and "make sense", and compiled with EU laws.