By Filipe Rufino - 28th March 2007
The European commission has announced that it is studying a wide range of economic measures aimed at offsetting environmental costs.
Brussels is looking at taxation, trading schemes and subsidies to help achieve the greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy goals set at last month’s EU summit.
“Market-based instruments such as emissions trading, environmental taxes and targeted subsidies harness the power of market forces to protect the environment”, EU environment chief Stavros Dimas said on Wednesday.
“Our goal is to promote the use of market-based instruments whenever they are appropriate to the circumstances so that Europe’s environment is protected more effectively”, he added.
An EU levy on imports from developed countries that have not ratified the Kyoto protocol is one of the ideas on the table.
The idea “appears to be very complicated, very sophisticated but worth being examined”, said EU tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs.
Other ideas on the 16-page paper include a harmonised landfill tax, introducing trading schemes for non-CO2 industrial gases and CO2 emissions from ships, as well as levelling the minimum commercial diesel and unleaded petrol duties
“Tax revenues can then be used to fund environment-friendly activities” Kovacs said.
In discussions with stakeholders, Brussels will see which areas can be best addressed at EU level and which ones would be better left to member states, a scommission pokeswoman said.
The commission hopes to make concrete proposals to member states “before the end of the year”, said the spokeswoman, with consultations open until the end of July.
But member states, which have historically closely guarded their tax powers, are wary of Brussels’ ambitions.
A ‘core group’ approach is not foreseen,“It is all or nobody,” said a spokesman indicating that all 27 EU capitals would have to agree on any new common instruments.
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