Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-23-Speech-2-302"
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"en.20030923.9.2-302"2
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"Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work, and I share his disappointment on the minimum solution. Commissioner Bolkestein also made it very clear that this minimum solution is a small breakthrough, but that the European Union has not actually succeeded in a consistent approach to energy taxation. This consistent approach remains coherent though, and after the experience with fiscal coordination we can almost be grateful because once again we had to experience how much the unanimity rule in fiscal decision-making hampers the functioning of the internal market. It is extremely regrettable that the fourth Environment Action Programme, which envisaged that sustainable development and economy could be stimulated not only by environmental regulation but also by tax regulation, could not be implemented, and so this directive’s tale of woe goes further back than just 1999.
Furthermore, the directive also has the defects – as has already been said – of low minimum rates, non-indexation of minimum rates and also the difficulty of derogations. We have already debated the issue of derogations on several occasions in this House. I believe that we have actually always agreed that there have to be derogations for energy intensive enterprises, but that these derogations should at least incorporate conditions enabling the situation to be tackled. This has not happened, and so this directive is bound soon to be followed by another.
What is positive is that this directive is not only a framework for the taxation of all types of energy, including electricity, but that at the same time it also supports the promotion of renewable sources of energy and thereby will surely be able to give additional impetus to further develop these renewable sources of energy. That is a good thing, because we know that it is renewable energy that gives not only Europe, but also world civilisation, a chance, since we all profit from the tax incentives for using environmentally friendly forms of energy. Actual primary energy generally costs nothing, and furthermore it can be obtained and converted where energy consumption takes place. Thus the steering effect of tax incentives for energy use is an important addition to the EU Environmental policy and, I believe, also to emissions trading. Rather than seeing this as a contradiction, here too, I see it as adding to the instruments that steer our European economies and lives towards sustainable development.
It is also to be welcomed that this directive will make possible the final implementation of measures for preferential tax treatment for biofuels, on which we have already agreed, but the regulation of which was, of course, coupled to general taxation. I can also see that the goals that we set can be achieved. I would just like to emphasise once again that in the past many Member States have taken advantage of the revenue effect of environmental taxes, in particular, energy taxes. I welcome the fact that in the meantime we can at least have the possibility of reaching a European agreement."@en1
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