Brussels, 04/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - Algirdas Šemeta, Commissioner for Taxation, Customs Union and Audit, states he is ready to “explore the feasibility of an internationally coordinated tax on financial transactions and other possible sources of innovative financing” in his response to the questionnaire forwarded to him by the European Parliament committee on economic and monetary affairs.
Mr Šemeta, the former Lithuanian finance minister, sets himself two priorities for his mandate if the EP confirms him at the post of taxation commissioner after his hearing on Tuesday 12 January. These priorities concern reform of taxation on energy products and the fight against fraud, whether this is fraud of a taxation or customs nature or relating to the use of Community funding. “My intention is to modernise energy taxation policy so that it more effectively supports the high priority objective of getting climate change under control, notably by proposing to revise the Energy Taxation Directive to complement the Emissions Trading System with a CO2 tax element within the broader perspective of a green taxation framework”, he said. His declaration is along the lines of work already begun by the current commissioner, Lászlo Kovács, The extent of this work could increase since the a minima agreement reached at the Copenhagen conference on climate in December 2009. In the field of tax evasion and fraud, the commissioner-designate undertakes to promote “good governance within and outside the EU, notably by closing any loopholes in the savings directive and enhancing EU action towards third countries and tax havens”. It will also be a question of promoting better tax cooperation between member states through, for example, the creation of the Eurofisc network for information exchange on VAT tax.
On the subject of customs, Mr Šemeta trusts, moreover, that implementation of the 2009-2012 action plan will be continued to combat counterfeiting, and that the legislation on intellectual property rights will be reviewed. He will tackle revision of the financial regulation in order to simplify eligibility criteria for spending and to reduce the risk of error for expenditure in several areas of Community action. Speaking of the European anti-fraud office (OLAF), the commissioner-designate evoked the possibility of making this service independent of the European Commission. (M.B./transl.jl)