Brussels, 12/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Finance Ministers completed this Monday an agreement on the exoneration given to Member States on excise duties that hit mineral oils. They where pushed by the need to fill the legal void, the derogation having expired on 31 December 2000, and by threats from Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, to initiate on Wednesday an infringement procedure against three Member States, which maintain derogations in favour of their road hauliers: France, Italy and the Netherlands.
The agreement was reached on the basis of a compromise from the Swedish Presidency, prorogues the derogations for six years, with the exception of the deductions granted by the three countries cited above for diesel for road hauliers, for whom the extension will be limited to two years. In 2002, there will be a substantial reduction in the size of the annual reimbursement agreed upon compared to 2001. It will be limited to 40,000 litres per year and per vehicles (50,000 litres in 2001 in France). France will thus be able to continue to reimburse its hauliers a share of the excise duties on diesel (35 centimes per litre in 2000, 25 in 2001 and 14 in 2002).
The agreement will depend upon negotiations between France and Germany in this field. Germany and Austria, which is not granting this kind of derogations to hauliers, remains hostile towards France for maintaining them on diesel after 2002. They argue unfair competition by France. The latter responds that the excise duties on diesel taken by France, even after the reimbursements, are, after those in the United Kingdom and Germany, the highest in the Union. France refused to committee itself over what will happen in two years. Thus the final document remains vague to the period after 2002. The Commission made a declaration, annexed to the agreement, where it feels that the extension of these derogations in favour of hauliers is not in accordance with the aims of the Community policies in terms of the environment, transport and energy and states that it does not intend to propose to continuation of deductions after 2002.
Ireland showed itself to be irritated by the establishment of a limit to the derogations, due to the fact that its own system foresees near permanent derogations. After having threatened to block the agreement, it finally conceded.