EU Aid Backs Tax Breaks for Low-Energy Appliances
Date: 27-Mar-07
Country: LITHUANIA
Last week leading European electrical appliance makers called for tax incentives to entice consumers to switch to more energy-efficient fridges, dishwashers and other goods.
"There is a concept to reduce a tax on energy-efficient household appliances, and I am in favour," Kovacs told a news conference in Vilnius, adding that the executive European Commission had not yet made a legislative proposal.
EU leaders agreed this month to boost energy efficiency in the course of an overhaul of the bloc's energy sector, and the Commission is expected to come up with ideas shortly on how to use "green taxes" to encourage this push.
Kovacs said there were no plans for new taxes, but tax incentives and tax sanctions to discourage pollution and encourage the use of clean energy were possible.
A review of the energy tax directive should follow in 2008 after a public debate on a discussion document, known as a green paper, due out in a couple of weeks, he added.
Kovacs and EU Budget Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite clashed at a distance in Vilnius over a Commission proposal to raise the minimum duty on commercial diesel fuel.
The plan is designed to stop "fuel tourism" -- where trucks add to pollution by taking detours through neighbouring countries where fuel is cheaper. Transport accounts for nearly a fifth of the bloc's carbon dioxide emissions.
"Approximation of excise duties on commercial diesel is a kind of 'green tax,'" Kovacs said.
But Grybauskaite told a separate news conference the diesel plan was not the right way to solve "the environmental problems by aggravating Europe's economy".
"The better way would be proposing (a) couple (of) countries to lower their excise duties instead of making more than twenty member states increase them," she said.
Lithuania's Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas said his country fully supported Grybauskaite's argument.
The EU executive wants to raise the minimum duty on truck fuel to 380 euros per 1,000 litres in 2014, with an intermediate step at 359 euros. That is up from 302 euros as of Jan. 1, 2004.
The proposal, which needs unanimous approval from the EU's 27 members, has already met with opposition since many low-tax states want to avoid tax hikes that would discourage truckers from filling up at their service stations.
