In response to the European Council Assimilation-Belgium
...e taxation at the top of their lists. Belgium believes that the progress of the second stipulation was discouraging. However, the issues emphasized were right on target. Denmark, Austria, Greece and Portugal should be commended for bringing the focus of the European Union to such topics as taxation policies, road taxes, the CAP and the budget deficit. All four of these areas are controversial issues of today, which was made evident by the lack of decision making within the European Council. The first proposal considered was Denmark’s proposal to create individual tax policies for each member-state of the European Union. Denmark feels that one policy for all the members would be too strict and would be denying the differences of all the members. Belgium is in support of this vague idea but found the actual wording of the proposal to be contradictory. Prime Minister, Rasmusssen, stated as noted before that each country should be looked at and dealt with individually and then goes on to say that each member should have to adhere to the same target range. Belgium feels that this proposal would have had more success in the Financial Ministers if each country had its own individual target ranges instead of going back and forth from national to supranational as Rasmusssen’s proposal implies. Despite Belgium’s vote to abstain from this proposal the other members voted to submit it in its simplest form to the Economic Council of the European Union. The next proposal addressed came from Austria and proposed to increase road tax by 0.50%. Belgium is in support of this proposal because the money would not necessarily be coming out of the people’s pockets but instead would be coming out of the European Union Budget. Also Belgium feels that the physical appearance of the European Union will bring more money and tourism to the Union. The European Union strongly depends on trade between the member-states and this trade occurs through exhaustive use of the roads. It is undeniable that better quality roads will lead to more accessible trade within the Union. It is important that the necessary precautions are made now before the problem affects trade and then leads to slowing down the economy. The majority of the members were in favor of this proposal except for Germany, Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands. Denmark brought up a good point in that they feel that each country should make the decision at the national level as to whether their roads need the work. Rasmusssen did have a point but he is getting away from the fact that although we are still all members of our own member-state we need to be able to sacrifice for the greater good at times. The remaining countries were hesitant to support a proposal in taking 0.50% away from an unidentified area. Austria went to great lengths to try to get the proposal passed and even moved to strike the 0.50% tax increase from the proposal but the four counties were not willing to cooperate. After much debate the proposal dies on the floor because of the inflexibility of Denmark, Netherlands, Britain and Germany. The third proposal analyzed was created by Greece. Greece ambitiously aimed to cut off all CAP subsidies to those countries that do not have an agricultural sector comprising 5% or more of its overall GDP or 10% of its labor force in the agricultural sector. Belgium did not support this proposal because Belgium’s agricultural sector is only 1.4% of its overall GDP and then only has 2.5% of its labor force in the agricultural sector. Therefore, Belgium did not meet either one of the requirements and would be cut off from the CAP. “The rapid extinction of the small farms is most pronounced in Belgium, where the number has declined by more then 80% in the last three decade...