Wednesday, 07 APRIL 2010 - CATEGORY : MARKET NEWS
The carbon tax is being scrapped at national level, the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, has announced.This announcement has pleased the transport operators’ associations, including the FNTR (Fédération Nationale des Transports Routiers). “We have always maintained that the carbon tax made no sense unless applied Europe-wide”, commented Nicolas Paulissen, the assistant chief executive of the FNTR. “The argument used for the scrapping of this tax is the same one we used to argue against it.” The argument concerned is Europe. “This levy should be applied at European level so as not to stifle the competitiveness of French companies”, was how the head of the French government put it.
By way of a reminder, the carbon tax was set to come into force on 1 July 2010. The plan was that road, waterway and maritime transportation would all be subject to the tax, but that they would benefit from tax exemption to the tune of 35%.
