Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-398"
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"en.20070522.31.2-398"2
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".
Mr President, first and foremost, although I normally support wholeheartedly Commission initiatives on taxation, especially the common consolidated corporate tax base for companies, on this issue I also support Mrs Lulling and this excellent report.
Any report that deals with alcohol and taxation risks running into a lot of national sensitivities, and this has happened to this report.
In 1992 – the last time this matter was debated in Parliament – the European Union looked very different. There were only 12 Member States, with GDP per capita levels relatively close to one another. It was then presumed that imposing minimum rates of duty on alcohol would result in price convergence across the Member States. We now know that, even if this had happened with the 12 old Member States – which it did not – the changes in the structure of our Union alone would impose the need for change. These rates are no longer up to date or beneficial for the European economy as a whole.
I am glad that Mrs Lulling came to the radical conclusion of scrapping all the minimum rates on alcohol duties and proposes a code of conduct instead. This is beneficial in many ways: it eliminates the need for continuous inflation checks and gives Member States the right to choose the level of duties appropriate for their economic and cultural conditions, which now vary greatly across the 27 Member States.
I understand the concern as to what the next consequence in the Council might be. It is true that the Member States might try to impose some new barriers, but we are not in favour of that. We would like to leave Member States free to make their own stupid decisions, if that is what they want to do.
Therefore, I would like to stress that being in favour of Mrs Lulling’s report does not contradict some Member States continuing to impose higher taxes on alcohol. This is the case, for example, in the Nordic countries, like Finland, where higher taxes are still used to finance, among other things, a wide number of health initiatives and campaigns. I support that policy in the Nordic countries, because we are not ready for very low rates of alcohol taxes in Europe. Maybe we are a less gastronomic country in that way, but this does not contradict my view that the Lulling report should be adopted tomorrow."@en1
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