EU energy policy: A level playing field
To ensure real competition and a more efficient single European market, it is urgent that the other member states raise their levels of ambition, and that pan-European initiatives contribute more to establishing a level playing field.
The Danish Agriculture & Food Council finds that a revision of the Energy Taxation Directive and stronger European energy efficiency improvement initiatives should be high on the agenda during Denmark’s presidency. Danish manufacturing and exporting businesses are already subject to some of Europe’s highest energy taxes, and Denmark is also one of the countries that have lowered energy costs the most.
To ensure real competition and a more efficient single European market, it is urgent that the other member states raise their levels of ambition, and that pan-European initiatives contribute more to establishing a level playing field.
- The formulation of binding objectives for energy savings, if applicable, must focus on making them as cost-effective as possible. So cost reductions should mainly be achieved in countries that are yet to reduce energy consumption.
- Denmark should give very high priority to the revision of the Energy Taxation Directive as harmonising energy taxes is essential to minimising distortion of competition.
- Denmark should aim at ensuring that the revised Energy Taxation Directive, like the Danish indirect tax system, continues to put sectors exposed to fierce competition (agriculture, horticulture, forestry and aquaculture) on an equal footing with mineralogical and metallurgical processes.
