Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-04-Speech-1-097"
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"en.20060904.18.1-097"2
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"Let us face reality. We have an anomaly, and the Commission’s proposal, which has been markedly improved through Mrs Riis-Jorgensen’s report and excellent work, is a step towards finding a solution to this problem. We do not have an internal market in the automobile sector. That is the problem. It is still very difficult for a European citizen in one country to buy a car from another country and go back home with it. In many cases, this citizen is faced with prohibitive and disproportionate fees, and dated bureaucratic procedures in the form of so-called registration taxes.
The Commission’s proposal for registration tax to be done away with and be replaced with a system of environmentally-sensitive taxes goes in the right direction, because it removes obstacles to an open market and lowers the capital cost of cars while encouraging more environmentally-friendly consumption. Can this proposal still be improved upon?
Among other things, we must ensure that those who have already paid registration tax are given an adequate refund. We must see to it that the weaker members of society who cannot afford to buy those types of car whose purchase we are encouraging, are not penalised through higher payments. In the same way we cannot place further burdens on those who necessarily have to travel, for example, to go to work. We can find reasonable and transparent solutions so that there will be no such negative effects. It is not easy but we can do it. The position of the European Parliament, which I hope we will adopt so that registration tax will be removed, will be sending a powerful signal to governments of countries who are still resisting a similar agreement, including my own country’s government.
Our proposal is realistic also because it is intended to come into effect over a reasonable amount of time in order to avoid causing a negative effect on national budgets. But until such an agreement is reached, we must still appeal to governments to act more reasonably by not imposing double taxation in the case of citizens who would be returning to their own country after at least two years working in another country of the European Union and find they have to pay tax once again on a car, which tax they will already have paid in another country. Ironically that is what is happening in my own country, Malta. Before my country joined the European Union, it was relatively easy for emigrants returning to my country, and bringing a car back with them, to pay a reasonable amount of tax. For the past two years however, people in this sort of situation are being asked to pay a prohibitive amount of tax. Then, these citizens justifiably ask us ‘What sort of internal market is this?’"@en1
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