The debate on green taxation has taken centre stage with the European Green Deal and the Covid-19 Recovery Plan. Lessons at national level show that carbon taxes can speed up the transition if ambitiously and strategically designed at a wider European level.

EEB recently published ‘A carbon pricing blueprint for the EU’, a report that aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion on carbon pricing and green taxation to help guide policymakers.

n a joint statement dating from 2018, the governments of France, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands called for the EU to both strengthen and extend carbon pricing in Europe. Their main argument was that cooperation at European level would increase both the economic and environmental effectiveness of carbon pricing.

Two years later, with the European Green Deal and the Covid-19 Recovery Plan at the core of the EU policy agenda, that claim becomes more pertinent than ever. Carbon pricing can play a relevant role in the upcoming EU climate policy toolboxes. In the ‘Fit for 55’ legislative package, carbon taxation can make a significant contribution to reducing the EU’s net emissions and in the Recovery Plans it can guide the national fiscal reforms required to ‘build back better’.

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