New statistics on environmental taxes, published yesterday (6 January) by Eurostat, provide a breakdown of energy, transport and pollution/resource taxes in the EU-27 and reveal who exactly is paying these taxes.
On average, green taxes collected by EU governments in 2007 totalled 304 billion euros and accounted for almost 2.5% of the bloc's GDP. Green taxes represented 6.2% of total EU taxation and social contributions.
Denmark recorded by far the highest level of eco-taxation in the EU at 5.9% of GDP. Above average taxation was also recoded in the Netherlands, Malta, Bulgaria and Cyprus, at between 3% and 4% of GDP respectively. Only Spain and Lithuania registered levels of environmental taxes below 2% of GDP.
According to Eurostat, the share of environmental taxes in EU GDP remained relatively stable or slightly decreased from 1999 to 2007. However, "environmental taxes form an increasingly significant share of households' and businesses' tax expenditures," it said.
The office also took note of green tax reform in some European countries, where environmental taxes had increased in relation to other forms of taxation, such as labour taxes.
In December 2010, EU environment ministers suggested considering "the possibility of shifting the revenue base for national budgets from taxing labour towards taxing energy and resource use," in a bid to pave the way for a more resource-efficient Europe.
Energy is taxed most heavily
The statistics show that, in 2007, energy taxes accounted for 72% of total environmental taxes. Transport taxes were responsible for 24%, while pollution and resource taxes made up the remaining 4%.
Energy taxation includes taxes on energy products such coal, fuel oils, natural gas and electricity as well as CO2 taxes. Transport taxation mainly includes taxes related to the ownership and use of motor vehicles, and resource and pollution taxation covers taxes on the extraction of raw materials, air emissions, water, noise and waste management.
Households are biggest payers
According to Eurostat, the burden of energy taxes on each sector of the economy can be compared to the actual consumption of energy of each sector.
The figures show that households paid the most with respect to their energy consumption in 2007. Only in Austria, Estonia and Lithuania did primary sector activities like agriculture, fishing and forestry pay the biggest share instead.
Households also paid most of the transport taxes in almost all European countries, forking out an average of 55-75%. But at the lower end of the scale, Estonian and Latvian households only paid around 25%-30% of transport taxation, compared to 90% paid by their Spanish counterparts at the other end.
The business sector's contribution to transport taxation ranged between 15% and 41%, with three exceptions: Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, where its contribution was above 68%.
