AFP, Paris :
Taxes on products considered polluting are struggling to gain ground in the European Union despite backing from Brussels, in the face of strong opposition from movements like France’s “Yellow Vests”.
In 2011 the European Commission envisaged that by “2020 a major shift from taxation of labour towards environmental taxation… will lead to a substantial increase in the share of environmental taxes in public revenues”.
So far this has not come to pass. Since then the share of environmental tax revenues in the EU, which stood at 6.18 percent, has fallen almost every year.
Nonetheless, eco-taxes in 2017 generated around 369 billion euros (some $303 billion).
Latvia leads the bloc in implementing eco-taxes, making up some 11.11 percent of its fiscal revenue in 2017, according to data from EU statistics authority Eurostat.
Taxes on products considered polluting are struggling to gain ground in the European Union despite backing from Brussels, in the face of strong opposition from movements like France’s “Yellow Vests”.
In 2011 the European Commission envisaged that by “2020 a major shift from taxation of labour towards environmental taxation… will lead to a substantial increase in the share of environmental taxes in public revenues”.
So far this has not come to pass. Since then the share of environmental tax revenues in the EU, which stood at 6.18 percent, has fallen almost every year.
Nonetheless, eco-taxes in 2017 generated around 369 billion euros (some $303 billion).
Latvia leads the bloc in implementing eco-taxes, making up some 11.11 percent of its fiscal revenue in 2017, according to data from EU statistics authority Eurostat.
