Brussels, 03/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The EU Council has adopted the amendments to the directive on energy taxation, granting the new Member States exemption until 2012 at the latest. All acceding countries presented exemption requests, as the Accession Treaty allows for legislation adopted after it is signed. The minimum taxation thresholds are lowered for fuel in particular (diesel, kerosene, leaded and unleaded petrol), as well as for the energy used for heating and industry. With the proposal of these exemptions, the Commission considered that an increase in energy tax would be too heavy a burden for the small and medium-sized companies and disadvantaged households of the new Member States. We recall that the Fifteen had also obtained a large number of derogations when the directive was adopted, in November 2003, after six years of laborious negotiation.
The text of the directive, with the list of exemptions, is available on the Commission's website (europa.eu.int/comm/taxation_custom/whatsnew.htm).