Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-17-Speech-1-157"
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the main rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, and the shadow rapporteurs, Benoît Hamon and Olle Schmidt. For unavoidable reasons, my colleague Benoît Hamon cannot be here today, so I will try to convey his position, which is the position of our political group, on a matter that deserves our full attention. In fact, taxation in terms of excise duties is a sensitive matter.
Liberalisation does allow some consumers to purchase these goods more cheaply. However, this does not make sense where it may prejudice the public finances of Member States or public health objectives which Member States have the right to safeguard. It also does not make sense where it may support the grey market, which is something that we should all avoid.
Therefore, the final agreement reached in committee was to maintain the limits at a reasonable level, namely 400 cigarettes or 45 litres of wine per person. These are the amounts assumed to be for personal consumption. As a result, those travellers who purchase these goods up to this limit will not be affected.
For the same reasons we oppose Amendment 68 of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, which proposes to tax distance sales, particularly those made over the Internet, in the seller’s country and not in the consumer’s country. This is an (unjustified) inversion of the general principle applying to taxation. This amendment would also open the door to a large-scale grey market and must therefore be absolutely rejected.
Finally, I must just mention the issue of duty-free shops. The internationally recognised principle is that duty-free shops may only exist at ports and airports, to ensure optimum control and prevent any risk of fraud or abuse. We must therefore allow sufficient time for people to adapt and that is why we propose, on behalf of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, a transitional period for those Member States which still have duty-free outlets, allowing them to gradually adjust to the new situation. We therefore propose the distant date of 1 January 2017 to allow a gradual convergence towards the common rule.
We believe that this approach is appropriate. It is an approach which resulted in consensus. It was not total consensus, but it was adopted by a majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and I hope that it will be adopted in the vote tomorrow in plenary.
When talking about excise duties, we must remember that they are levied on clearly defined consumer goods and services: tobacco, alcohol and energy products.
The Commission proposal amends a text dating from 1992. The internal market in these goods has changed a great deal since then. It should also be noted that the new electronic system for managing and controlling transactions is a change that we welcome and that should simplify the operation of the system, for both operators and tax authorities, as the Commissioner has just mentioned.
As regards the more technical aspects – including time limits for forwarding documents, rules for the establishment of financial guarantees by operators, and so on – the Commission proposal and the rapporteur’s report deserve congratulations and agreement as they represent genuine and useful advances.
However, with regard to these excise duties, the political content should not stop at technical aspects, as already mentioned by my colleague Manuel António dos Santos. The goods covered by this proposal are sensitive goods, the sale of which should not be subject merely to the forces of competition. In this respect, I should therefore like to focus on two illustrative examples. One is the guideline limits for the personal transport of these goods and the other is the rules applicable to Internet sales.
On these subjects, we clearly disagree with the rapporteur.
With regard to alcohol, tobacco and also fuel, the differences in taxation between the Member States are huge and therefore the retail prices also differ. I only need to point out that the price of a packet of tobacco can vary between EUR 1 and EUR 7 within the Union due to these significant differences in duty.
As a rule, duties are payable in the country of consumption, except with regard to goods transported within the European Union. Under current rules, certain quantitative limits must be respected, otherwise it may be presumed that the goods are being transported for commercial purposes.
The Commission proposal aims to abolish these quantitative limits and, on this specific aspect, the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, agrees. This was not the understanding of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. By contrast, we agreed to lower these limits, following initiatives by the shadow rapporteurs, Benoît Hamon and Olle Schmidt, and also myself."@en1
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