BRUSSELS: The EU on Wednesday proposed a tax on plastic packaging to fight pollution and to help plug a hole of around 13 billion euros in the bloc's post-2020 budget caused by Brexit.
Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said debate will touch on whether to tax manufacturers or consumers and whether to offer exemptions, such as to ensure products like milk are safe.
"We are going to propose the possibility of introducing a tax on plastics to incentivise the reduced use of plastic packaging," Oettinger told reporters.
Britain's Prince Charles and others called at an EU-backed conference last year for drastic action to stop eight million tonnes of plastic waste entering the world's oceans annually and the fish people eat.
At the conference in Malta, Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said "taxing is a method but I think it is not the sustainable method," which he argued is making recyclable plastics.
Oettinger made the plastic tax proposal as the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, prepares to adopt a detailed proposal for its next long-term budget from 2021 until 2027.
Britain will leave the EU in March 2019 but has agreed to pay its financial contributions to the bloc until the current seven-year EU budget period expires at the end of 2020.
Oettinger said Monday that Britain's exit would leave a hole of 12-13 billion euros, and backed European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's call for a bigger share of Europe's GDP to go towards the EU.
He proposed increasing contributions from one percent of GDP (gross domestic product) in the 2014-2020 budget of 963 billion euros (about 1.1 trillion dollars) to 1.1 percent of GDP in the next budget.
Revising figures on Wednesday, Oettinger said the hole could be 14 billion euros and suggested contributions be increased to between 1.1 percent and 1.2 percent of GDP.
'Rule of law'
Amid a worsening standoff with Poland over controversial court reforms, Oettinger added the commission is considering requiring member states to comply with the bloc's democratic principles as a condition for budget allowances.
"The respect of the rule of law and the independence of the courts would then constitute a condition for claiming European budgetary resources," the German commissioner said.
Alternatively, he said, complying with "the rule of law could be seen as a possible way of getting more resources."
In a major escalation against one of the bloc's biggest states, Brussels last month triggered article seven of the EU treaty over what it sees as "systemic threats" to the independence of the Polish judiciary from the nation's right-wing government.
Never before used against an EU member state, the proceedings can eventually lead to the "nuclear option" of the suspension of a country's voting rights within the bloc.