Allister appalled by EPP call for EU tax on e-mails
11 May 2006
"I am appalled by a proposal this week by a senior member of the EPP group in the European Parliament that the EU should levy a tax on all SMS messages and emails! Alain Lamassoure, a senior centre-right French MEP, who belongs to the same group as Jim Nicholson MEP, has suggested that the EU levy such a tax in a debate on the union's future financing.
Information technology has opened up fantastic economic opportunities and transformed business and personal lives. To suggest that the EU, or national governments, should cash in to tax use of the information technology highway would be outrageous. Yet, this is precisely the type of opportunistic cash grab which the EU could be tempted to undertake as it struggles to secure economic independence and viability. It is important, therefore, that such a crazed idea is killed off at birth."
