Brussels, 19/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - The ECSC Consultative Committee considers that the unilateral introduction of taxes on energy products in the Member States could create competition distortion between energy sources to the detriment of coal production.
In an opinion adopted during its last meeting, the Consultative Committee calls for discussions on the proposal for a Council directive on energy taxation, on the table of the Council for four years now, to take into account the "need to avoid distortions of competition in the field of energy resulting from an approach to energy taxation which is insufficiently coordinated between Member States and industrial sectors". It calls on the Member States and the Commission to avoid all discriminatory treatment towards a specific fuel which is currently the case in some Member States, mainly for promoting renewable energies. The Commission calls for green energies to be supported by "dedicated measures rather than by tax measures for other energies". Generally speaking, it considers that a tax proportional to CO2 production is "unacceptable" as it does not take into account "of other greenhouse gases as well as of other environmental problems related to energy use".
In "additional observations", the coal industry also insists on the need to maintain the energy mix and not to hamper the competitiveness of fossil fuels with an energy tax. The steel industry remarks for its part that "the Commission's tax concept is at odds with the voluntary commitments made by the steel industries of some EU Member States with a view to reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions".