Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-15-Speech-1-101"
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"en.20031215.8.1-101"2
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".
Mr President, it is with the greatest of pleasure that I shall reply to the question put by Mrs Lulling. I could have done so earlier but she did not ask for it and therefore I did not think it was necessary to reply.
In answer to her question, the Commission considers that any study of the postal sector and particularly those which must be done according to Directive 97/67/EEC should take into account the impact of VAT in the sector and that it undertakes to take into account the spirit of Amendment No 6.
As regards Amendments Nos 7 and 13 proposing to delay the entry into force of the directive until each Member State has achieved a certain degree of liberalisation, the Commission's position is that it cannot accept linking two issues which are quite separate, but the Commission could accept a date of entry into force of the directive no later than January 2006, by which date the Community postal market as a whole should have surpassed that degree of liberalisation.
The Commission does not support amendments linking the scope of the proposed place of supply rule and reduced rates to Article 2(1) of Directive 97/67/EC. Postal services as defined in that Article are those supplied by the universal service provider. The linkage proposed by that amendment would not eliminate current distortions of competition in the postal market and therefore the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 1, 8, 11 and 12.
For reasons of subsidiarity the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 2, 4 and 9 which seek to oblige Member States to apply a reduced rate and to prescribe how a certain part of national VAT revenue should be spent. Nor can it accept widening the scope of applicable rates as suggested by Amendments Nos 3 and 10. Such amendments would not be acceptable to a majority of the Council either.
As regards Amendment No 5, the Commission considers that the issues posed by philatelic stamps are no different to those existing today. Under current legislation, stamps are only exempt when sold at face value. They are taxable in all other cases. Since this different tax liability is not causing problems today, it should not cause problems once the proposal is approved."@en1
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