Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-17-Speech-1-137"
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"en.20031117.9.1-137"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, this is a sensitive subject. We see this from the many vicissitudes that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has gone through since we dealt for the first time with the issue of tax on diesel fuel. Of course, the debate in the House this evening also indicates this.
I wish to thank my fellow MEP, Mrs Kauppi, for the typically assiduous and ambitious work she has done. This time – this once, I hope – I must however inform you that the majority of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party do not share her conclusions.
Certainly, we can agree that the Commission proposal entails problems, difficult issues and delicate considerations. My conclusion, nonetheless, is that it is a pity that the committee’s majority could not have built upon what was good about the proposal and improved it instead of rejecting it in its entirety, something now proposed by both the big political groups. I therefore share Mr Bolkestein’s opinion on this matter, and I shall explain why.
Firstly, the ELDR Group’s amendment is about tax coordination, not harmonisation. We propose allowing taxes to vary and fluctuate within a broad tax band, providing scope for the Member States’ own judgments without dispensing with what is good about the proposal.
Secondly, the Commission proposal is of course about improving the environment. I certainly think that a number of the arguments sound like just a lot of excuses. Tax competition may, I agree, be a good thing, but not if the environment suffers as a result. Environmental and energy taxes are the taxes I believe can be decided at EU level.
Thirdly, the big differences between the Member States damage the internal market. To maintain, as Mrs Kauppi does, that there is no diesel fuel tourism is, in actual fact, to put one’s head in the sand – or possibly in the tank – and not see what is actually going on.
A modified Commission proposal would be good for the environment, strengthen the internal market and improve competition. That is something to which opposition in this House should be impossible on the part either of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats or on the part of the Group of the Party of European Socialists. Let us not end up recoiling in fear or engaging in exaggerated rhetoric every time we debate a proposal containing the word ‘tax’."@en1
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