The European Commission is working on a study of the impacts that a tax on carbon emissions would have in the European Union, with the aim of coming up with a proposal for new rules in the coming months, a spokeswoman said Thursday.
Taxation Commissioner Algirdas Semeta "is working toward coming forward with a proposal in the coming months," his spokeswoman Emer Traynor said during a daily press conference. "At the moment, an impact assessment is being finalized."
A proposal should be ready in April or May, she told Dow Jones Newswires later Thursday.
Last year – before the appointment of the new commissioners – a draft showed that the commission was considering proposing a minimum tax on energy products such as gasoline based on their carbon dioxide emissions as part of a broader plan to reform energy taxation in the 27-nation bloc.
According to that draft, a minimum tax on energy products would be partly based on how much CO2 energy products emit, rather than only on their energy content.
Traynor said such a principle is likely to remain in the new proposal, which will be aimed at complementing the EU’s flagship program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Emissions Trading System, which caps the amount of CO2 produced by EU industry and creates a market for them.