On Wednesday 27 March, MEPs approved by 601 votes to 35 with 29 abstentions the draft report drawn up by Miguel Viegas (GUE/NGL, Portugal) approving the recast of the general arrangements for excise duty.
The proposal for a Directive aims to amend the 2008 proposal establishing the general arrangements for excise products, such as energy products and electricity, alcohol and alcoholic beverages and manufactured tobacco.
The recasting also covers the dispatch of these products, which are released for consumption in a Member State. The text also provides for a common solution for partial natural losses incurred during a movement and for the automation of the exemption certificate and its processing for movements of excise goods to recipients exempt from payment of excise duty.
The Legal Services' Consultative Working Party of the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the Commission considered that the proposal did not contain any substantive amendments other than those identified as such in the proposal and was limited to a straightforward codification of the existing acts, without changing their substance.
On this matter, the Parliament has only been consulted. At the March Ecofin Council meeting, European ministers failed to reach agreement on this text (see EUROPE 12212/7). However, the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU aims to reach a political agreement ('general approach') before the end of its mandate. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)