MEPs to vote on pollution-based car tax

Plans for an EU-wide pollution-based car tax will be backed by Euro-MPs today.

The European Commission wants to scrap varying national car and road taxes in EU member states in favour of a standard taxation system centred on CO ₂emissions.

MEPs agree pollution should be the standard yardstick rather than national registration taxes.

A report to be voted on in Strasbourg warns against taking tax policy out of national hands but says different car tax systems are a consumer burden

- particularly for motorists wanting to register their cars elsewhere in the EU when moving around Europe for work.

Conservative MEPs are refusing to back the new plan if a system based on CO ₂emissions forces vintage and veteran cars off the road. But hundreds of other MEPs want to see a green-based car tax system applied across the 25 EU countries.

The MEPs' vote has no legal force - the scheme could only become law if approved unanimously by EU governments, and there is no majority among member states for the plan.

The report, by a European Parliament committee, says that transport accounts for 28 per cent of all CO ₂emissions in the EU, and almost half of that share is caused by passenger cars.

The report endorses the idea of introducing an EU-wide "pollution element" in car taxation.