Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-15-Speech-1-091"
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"en.20031215.8.1-091"2
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".
Mr President, in 1977, the Council adopted the Sixth VAT Directive. It was a tremendous step towards the effective removal of restrictions on the movement of persons, goods, services and capital and the integration of national economies. For the first time, the Community had a harmonised base of taxation and a harmonised list of exempted goods and services. Among them, the Community legislator, in 1977, included those supplied by the public postal services.
The Commission was the proponent of the universal service concept at the heart of Directive 97/67/EC and considers that every citizen in the Union has the right to a wide range of affordable and high-quality postal services. Universal postal service providers will not be in a position to provide such a service if they are discouraged from investing and modernising and as a result can no longer compete with other operators in the parts of the market which are already open to competition. In order to compete in such markets they need a Europe-wide presence and tools such as package tracing, which private and third-country operators already offer to European customers. The current VAT exemption makes the required investment more expensive. Universal postal operators in Europe recognise such challenges and accordingly most of them support the objectives of this proposal.
To conclude, I would invite Members to support the Commission's proposal.
This exemption dates from a time where in most Member States, the post office was a branch of the government with a monopoly on postal services. At the time, the post office undoubtedly was a public postal service and the exemption of its services caused no distortion of competition because no competition was possible.
These facts no longer hold true. In most Member States, the post office is no longer a branch of the government, but a commercial enterprise operating under commercial law. In some cases its shares are sold on the stock markets. Some Member States already apply VAT to post, or to some or all services provided by the universal service provider, recognising the problems caused by an outdated exemption.
Some of these companies are now expanding their operations to other Member States in order to reap the benefits of the internal market just like other third-country postal operators are doing. Consumers now demand services that only companies with a presence in several European markets can provide. But, under current rules, a company which supplies exempt postal services in Member State A is obliged to charge VAT in Member State B, because that country does not recognise it as a public postal service.
The postal market is now largely liberalised. Although, as is often the case, post liberalisation advances at a different pace in each Member State, in all of them - in great measure due to the approval of Directive 97/67/EC, operators other than the former monopolies can and do operate. Since several operators provide postal services and VAT legislation does not treat them equally, distortion of competition inevitably occurs.
A VAT exemption is not an unmixed blessing. Notably, it results in an inability to deduct input VAT, which in turn discourages investment. At a time where competition exists in the postal market and the communications revolution has created new channels that to some extent compete with post, lower rates of investment put public operators at risk.
As is often the case with European tax legislation, the VAT Directive has lagged behind all these changes and now requires urgent changes since it no longer reflects the needs or the factual situation in the Community.
Under Article 93 of the Treaty, provisions concerning VAT must be adopted to the extent that harmonisation is necessary to ensure the establishment and the functioning of the internal market. The Commission, in presenting its proposal, is fulfilling its obligations under the Treaty. It has done so after extensive consultation with universal postal services and other postal operators, as well as representatives of postal consumers.
It has taken into account their opinions, in particular, those of private customers and charities by proposing that a reduced rate be applied to those services such as letterpost, small packages and direct mail which such customers need most. The combined effect of the savings to postal operators resulting from the right of deduction which the proposal would open to them and the application of a reduced rate to a wide scope of postal services is intended to limit or even neutralise any increase in postal prices."@en1
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