Guardian: Special report: the petrol war Andrew Osborn in Brussels and Jon Henley in Paris Thursday September 21, 2000 Britain last night refused to consider harmonising fuel tax across the EU but came under renewed pressure to cut duty at home as France announced more concessions. The French prime minister, Lionel Jospin, said he would introduce new fuel tax compensation measures next month. The unexpected announcement makes it even more difficult for Tony Blair to refuse to review fuel tax in the light of last week's protests. There was little progress, however, at an emergency meeting of EU transport ministers in Luxembourg attended by the transport minister, Lord Macdonald. The European commission was pushing for some kind of EU-wide fuel tax but Lord Macdonald was unwilling even to discuss the matter. "This meeting is about transport policy and not taxation," he said before talks began. The meeting was called by France at the height of the fuel protests but it looked unlikely last night that it would produce any kind of significant agreement and many ministers said they thought it had been convened too late. The European commission has launched an inquiry to see whether concessions granted by Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands breach EU state aid rules. If they do, tax breaks and payments of state aid to truckers and others across Europe in recent weeks will have to be cancelled and repayment demanded. _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
