Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-397"
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"en.20070522.31.2-397"2
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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in politics, we sometimes need to show courage. Parliament could do that tomorrow by voting for my report, which proposes the abolition of minimum rates of excise duty on alcohol and alcoholic beverages. These rates were set in 1992 with a view to approximating the rates applied in the different States. This approximation has not happened, far from it.
The minimum rates are not to blame, however, even though they have not been brought into line with inflation for fifteen years. If they were increased by 31% – as the Commission proposed in September 2006 – there would still be no significant approximation. In fact, the difference between these minimum rates, even if they were adapted, and the rates on wine, beer and spirits in the Member States of the North of the Union, would still be huge. By way of evidence, the tax on a litre of beer in the Czech Republic or Malta is EUR 0.0936, whilst in Finland it stands at EUR 1.43!
Despite many months of discussion, the Council has not been able to reach an agreement on adapting these minimum rates, however minimal an adaptation it may be. It has only just decided to ask the Commission to carry out a detailed study on the taxing of alcohol and alcoholic beverages, in particular the trends relating to competitive positions and price levels.
Things being as they are, Commissioner, we must now escape from the impasse in which the Council and the Commission are tied up. There is only one sensible, logical and intelligent way to do this: to forget about minimum rates that no longer have any raison d'être and to reach an agreement on a code of practice that will help the Member States to bring their rates of excise duty closer together while respecting the principle of subsidiarity, which you have forgotten to mention. That is what the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is proposing to you in my report.
With regard to the amendments tabled for plenary by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I firmly propose that they be rejected. The Socialist amendments would lead to a botched job on the increase in rates and on the timetable. What is more serious, however, is the fact that they provide henceforth for automatic adaptations to the European price index in the event that it increases by 0.5%, with no consultation of Parliament or of the Council. When we think back to our battle in the field of comitology, such a proposal is a thing of folklore! To propose a zero rate, as the Socialists have done, for Bulgarian home distillers who consume their own products, was nothing but window dressing and an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the Bulgarian citizens before the European elections in Bulgaria on 20 May. This is blindingly obvious, since the authors of the amendment in question know perfectly well that such an exemption would be impracticable and would have no chance of being adopted unanimously in the Council. The same is true of the withdrawal of my report from the agenda of the mini-session of 9 May, in order to prevent the Bulgarian Socialists from showing their true colours before 20 May: it has not helped much, in view of the Socialists’ result in Bulgaria, which was not so marvellous, I am pleased to say.
With regard to the amendments of the Greens, I must first of all point out that they are unaware that it is fortunately not the Commission, but the Council, that has to decide on taxation. Such ignorance of the Treaty is all the more serious for a group that never stops preaching to everybody in this House! If, at the last minute, the Greens had not withdrawn their Amendments 24 and 26 – which call upon the Commission to set a maximum rate – we would have had to declare them inadmissible because they were incompatible with the Treaty.
To classify wine as a substitute for beer, as the Greens do in their Amendment 25, is complete fantasy and demonstrates an under-developed knowledge of gastronomy. The wine producers of France, Germany and Luxembourg will not forget, by 2009, that their Green MEPs proposed abolishing the zero tax on wine, which is an extremely important agricultural product. These countries, which have chosen to apply the zero tax, are certainly not prepared to vote for its abolition as from 2008.
Commissioner, you have defended your position, which has already died a death in the Council. I regret that you have not taken the opportunity that we are offering you on a platter to break the deadlock without losing face. It is a real shame! I am sure you understand Latin, Commissioner:
[to err is human, to persist is of the Devil]"@en1
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