Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-10-Speech-3-298"
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"en.20040310.9.3-298"2
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"Mr President, Mrs Lulling is the embodiment of non-populist intelligence. Nevertheless, the total harmonisation of indirect taxation has never been an objective of the European Union. An internal market can work perfectly well with fiscal competition, as long as it is fair competition. The proof of this is the American internal market, in which the fifty States of the Union continue to tax consumption through local taxes of between 0 and 10 percentage points.
The coordination of VAT rates and excise duties that took place with my modest contribution, in 1991, under the Luxembourg Presidency, established the base rates, including zero rates in some areas, and the ceiling rates, allowing the Member States a degree of freedom of action for a national taxation policy. However, the Commission is still pushing for fiscal unification. Each Community acquis is fiercely defended. This is the case in the debate surrounding a possible decrease in VAT rates for some highly labour-intensive services. Normally, Mr President, people eat wherever they happen to get hungry. There are very few people who will go abroad to find a hair salon with a better rate of VAT. There are even fewer citizens who call on the European competition when they have a plumbing problem.
Why does the Commission not take notice when the Member States want, for example, to promote employment in certain sectors in which the VAT rate is too high? The Commission’s proposal to abolish the VAT exemption granted to public postal services comes from this same vague desire for standardisation. The postal sector is still a service organised at national level with a national price system. Until, for example, you can put an Italian or Swedish stamp on a letter in France, there will not be an internal postal market, or a real distortion of competition between the different postal systems. The reasons why postal systems are, nevertheless, fighting for the introduction of a VAT rate are basely material. By charging even minimal VAT on standard postal services, postal operators could deduct the VAT paid on their purchases. Those who would not benefit are consumers. They would very quickly face increases in postal prices.
The majority of the Socialist Group will vote against VAT on postal services. We want to defend consumers. The harmonisation of VAT on postal services sought by the Commission is in fact just an attempt to create the conditions required for a subsequent privatisation of a public service for the benefit of certain private companies that are already active in that field. We oppose the privatisation of this universal service which, even in the United States, functions as a public service."@en1
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