Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-15-Speech-2-267"
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"en.20000215.10.2-267"2
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". – The matter of excise taxes, to which the honourable Member is referring, is the prerogative of the Member State concerned. The Commission has no instruments to enforce any particular decrease or increase in excise taxes on alcoholic products or on any other products.
Towards the end of this year the Commission will submit a report on the differences in excise taxes between Member States. It will no doubt engage in a discussion both with Parliament and the Council on this state of affairs, which indicates that there are quite a lot of differences in excise rates between Member States. For example – I believe the honourable Member referred to this – no excise taxes are applied on wine in France, whereas they are applied in the United Kingdom. That leads to a distortion of the internal market because wine is smuggled from France to the United Kingdom.
The question specifically refers to the relation between excise taxes and the alcohol content of the goods subject to excise tax. The Commission has no means of influence here.
In the case of Sweden, the instrument of excise taxes is indeed used to reduce the consumption of alcohol. Although this leads to a disparity in excise taxes between Sweden and other Member States of the Union – and that by itself increases cross-border smuggling of alcoholic products – it is a legitimate instrument to decrease the consumption of alcohol. There is ,of course, elasticity of demand, in this case a price elasticity of demand. I am not sure exactly what it is, but it is not zero, therefore it must have some effect."@en1
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