Ex-rally champ bids to end

Date: 06/02/03

A FINN buys a Mercedes in Frankfurt for X euro and decides to move back to Helsinki a year later. He must pay Y euro just to bring the car into his home country, and Z extra euro for any additional vehicle.

Question: How much more are Y and Z than X? (Answer: in some instances more than the original purchase price.)

This is not a ninth-grade maths problem, but a real-life scenario that seriously irks Finnish MEP Ari Vatanen. But he says that the floodgates are about to open.

Vatanen, a 50-year-old former rally champion, is referring to a case brought before the European Court of Justice last September by a fellow Finn who had to pay a whopping sum when he brought his beloved Mercedes back home from Germany.

He paid a heavy premium because Finland's registration tax is higher than in any other member state bar Denmark.

Vatanen says the case prompted the country's parliament to pass a new law that reduces some of the burden. "But it does not go far enough."

Vatanen approves of a communication published last autumn by Frits Bolkestein, the internal market commissioner, which puts forward a persuasive argument for the eventual total phase-out of the vehicle registration taxes.

But, although the proposal is now being discussed in the European Parliament, the decision unfortunately lies in the hands of member states, he says. "And you will see how the member states will undermine that in the Council."

Finnish MEP Ari Vatanen is supporting a proposal to phase out vehicle registration taxes.