The EU’s commissioner in charge of taxation has called on member states to push forward with shifting taxes from labour to natural resources, carbon and energy (Brussels, 2.2.17).

This is great news, as it picks up one of the three proposals in my article

Walter R Stahel (2013) Policy for material efficiency—sustainable taxation as a departure from the throwaway society; in: Philosophical Transactions A of the Royal Society, London. Published 28 January 2013 doi: 10.1098/rsta.2011.0567 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 13 March 2013 vol. 371 no. 1986 20110567.

The other two proposed measures are “do not levy VAT on the value conserving activities of the circular economy” and “carbon credits for CO2 emission prevention (through reuse and service-life extension) as for reduction measures to reduce pollution”.

And of course the policy is in line with Fritz Schumacher’s philosophy “economics as if people mattered” – published 1973 under the title “Small is beautiful”.

Taxation is in the remit of the EU Member States, so this is as courageous as the EU Commissioner on taxation can be. But this time, it comes with a political insight:
we are consuming non-renewable resources while renewable human resources are wasted. If you want to counteract populism, start reforming the tax system.

EU tax commissioner calls for green tax shift
James Nix, 2 Feb 2017

The EU’s commissioner in charge of taxation has called on member states to push forward with shifting taxes from labour to natural resources, carbon and energy.

Pierre Moscovici called for support "to help convince my Commission colleagues to revitalise projects in this regard", at a Brussels event on Wednesday,

Since 1990 the Commission has proposed EU-wide carbon taxation on a number of occasions. Its latest proposal to revise the Energy Taxation Directive linking fuel taxes to CO2 emissions and energy content was axed in 2015 after negotiations stalled in the EU Council.