Environmental tax harmonization and competition-centred legal practice of EUCJ

Abstract:

The subject of the article is, in general, the explanation and justification of environmental taxes that appear in the EU in the light of the current ecological crisis. In particular, the article is going to assess European developments and examine the practice of the EU Court of Justice, pursued in this field. As discussed in the article, environmental tax legislation of the Member States may get stuck due to the EU Court that is committed to the fundamental freedoms. Such a failure may happen because the Member State’s environmental taxes are not targeted enough or they establish the special treatment of a group of taxpayers that cannot be upheld before ECJ in the light of the non-discrimination principle. The article seeks to give an account of the problems as depicted above.