Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-127"
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"en.20030924.2.3-127"2
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".
Tax issues are by their nature very thorny, something attributable, as much as to anything else, to the great differences between one country’s system and another’s; for example, the Scandinavian states, in particular, use high levels of excise duty to fund their extremely generous social security systems. Our practice is to fund pensions – to take one example – using employers’ and employees’ contributions, albeit on a participatory basis.
In the EU, we agreed, at the beginning of the 1990s, to lay down only minimum rates and to retain unanimity in the Council on matters relating to this. Despite the issue’s sensitivity, efforts were made, when this proposal was discussed, to abolish the unanimity principle with effect from 2010. Decisions as important as that are taken while revising the Treaties or the Constitutional Treaty and not when consulting Parliament on a draft directive.
Turning to the taxation of fuel, harmonised minimum rates for Luxembourg (and other Member States) always go hand in hand with an increase in tax, and thus, in fact, with an increase in prices. Although Luxembourg’s specific situation meant that it was allowed a temporary derogation, this is no reason to bring forward from 2010 to 2008 the second phase for the application of the minimum rates. I am sure that the thinking behind the rapporteur’s amendment was that it would benefit the environment if higher fuel prices were to deter consumers from using their own cars."@en1
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