Global Policy Forum

German Greens push for big petrol tax hike

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from ENDS Environmental Daily
Monday, 9 March 1998


The German Greens have called for petrol prices to be tripled over ten years as part of a major programme of ecological tax reform. At its spring conference this weekend, the party also voted to make ecological tax reform (See Resources) a prerequisite for any future governing coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) following this autumn's federal elections. The Greens currently have about 10% support in national opinion polls, which put their combined strength with the SPD at about 50%. The move could put pressure on the SPD to strengthen its own, more modest, tax reform policies, but has been widely seen as unrealistic: reacting to the demand, SPD parliamentary leader Peter Struck described the proposal as "rubbish". Observers say that this and other outcomes of the conference - including a vote against the deployment of German troops in foreign peacekeeping missions - have damaged the credibility of the Greens as a party of government. An SPD spokesman said that plans for a coalition in the event of a "Red-Green" election victory nevertheless remained on track. "There are still contentious issues to discuss, but a coalition cannot fall just over the price of petrol," he said.


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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.