|
Postal tax-break
- The European Commission is threatening to take the UK and Germany to the European Court of Justice for giving an exemption from VAT to its postal operators. On 24 July, Taxation Commissioner László Kovács sent the UK and Germany a second formal warning, saying that the VAT exemptions were distorting competition as they were only available for former monopoly postal operators.
Gas pipeline
- Poland and the three Baltic states are asking the Commission to fund a feasibility study into an overland gas pipeline as an alternative to a controversial Russian-German undersea project. Lithuanian Economics Minister Vytas Navickas said that he expected to get a response from the Commission this year to the request to study the merits of the overground pipeline. The EU countries have been heavily critical of a plan by the Nord Stream consortium, made up of Russian energy giant Gazprom and German companies BASF and E.ON, to build a 1,200 kilometre pipeline under the Baltic by 2010.
Airbus subsidies
- The European Union has dismissed as "absurd" claims by the US that it had paid €148 billion in subsidies to aircraft maker Airbus. The US made the claim in a submission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) published this week. The WTO is currently examining a complaint by the US that aid paid to Airbus broke international trade rules. EU officials said that the amount cited by the US was 12 times the market capitalisation of EADS, Airbus’ parent company.
German skills-gap
- Germany could open its labour market to workers from former Communist countries earlier than 2009, according to a senior labour ministry official. Gerd Andres, state secretary at the labour ministry, said that Germany could lift its restrictions early "if we continue to suffer from a labour shortage in Germany". Germany decided to keep its labour market closed until 2009 to workers from the 12 countries which joined in 2004 and 2007, but it is facing shortages of both qualified and low-skilled staff.
Polish shipyard aid
- The Commission warned the Polish government on Friday (20 July) that it may have to recover aid paid to struggling Baltic coast shipyard Gda´nsk unless it provides more information on restructuring measures. The government has one month to provide information on "adequate capacity reductions" that will allow the Commission to evaluate whether conditions for aid were met. Proposals to reduce capacity at the Gdynia and Szczecin shipyards were welcomed by the Commission, which opened a formal inquiry into Polish shipyard aid worth at least €1.3 bn in 2005.
Trade negotiators are readying themselves for serious talks aimed at concluding the six-year Doha round this autumn.
|
