Following the EU evaluation on energy taxation, Malta’s Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said the country is against the removal of tax exemptions on aviation and shipping fuels from the Energy Tax Directive.
The EU evaluated the the Energy Taxation Directive, exploring additional environmentally friendly policies, given that the EU rules on energy taxation no longer deliver the same positive contribution as when they first came into force, back in 2003.
The remarks were made on the sidelines of the Informal ECOFIN meeting in Helsinki, Finland, where Mr. Scicluna insisted that a removal of the exemption was not the way forward.
While welcoming the evaluation as a need for today’s new conditions that require a bigger promotion of renewables and clean energy sources, the Minister noted that the removal of tax exemptions on aviation and shipping fuels “will have serious repercussion on many member states, unless tackled internationally,” he was quoted as saying by maltatoday.
This means that European countries, including Malta, would see reduced revenues from bunkering and refueling activities as operators would choose to do these operations outside the EU where exemptions would still be in place.
The finance ministers also debated the resilience of financial market infrastructure and the role of the financial sector in countering hybrid threats, the next steps needed by the EU to enhance the Capital Markets Union (CMU), as well as the European Fiscal Rules.
