The European Commission is ready to offer to member states concrete proposals for the introduction of a EU-tax, finance commissioner Janusz Lewandowski said Monday for Financial Times Germany.
The paper qualifies the idea as “provocative” and stresses that up to now it has been meeting firm opposition on the parts of many of the EU governments, including those of the larger member-states.
EU finance commissioner Lewandowski now states that he is ready to table specific proposals by September and motivates his move with the current financial situation in many member states, which have imposed various degrees of austerity and are trying to keep strict score of their finances.
“Many EU-countries want to have the burden [to collect funds for the EU-budget] lifted from them. They will thus be able to take better care their own revenue,” said the EUBudget and Financial Programming Commissioner.
The idea is for money from the future tax to flow directly in to the EU budget, thus eliminating part of contributions that member states must make yearly.
“I'm hearing many capitals say – including important ones like Berlin – that they would very much like to reduce their EU financial contribution,” said Lewandowski, linking the EU-taxwith reduced state spending.
He stated that the proposals “must be ambitious, but realistic,” and hoped for support among member-states, which have to be unanimous for the introduction of a EU-tax.
He said that in September he will give out “a number” of options to EU governments, including a tax on air traffic, on financial transactions, and on auctioning rights to carbon emmission. Novinite
