“Beef tax” in agriculture is slaughtered
The Government’s plan to introduce a flat CO2 tax for agriculture raises strong reactions. KrF says no to such a “beef tax”.
The Centre Party’s Geir Pollestad, who is the head of the Business Committee in the Parliament, thinks the fee is in fact a beef tax that will weaken Norwegian production and move jobs out of the country.
– It is crazy that a CO2 tax is introduced on a biological process such as food production. – I never thought that the progress Party (Frp) and the Conservatives (H) would be the party’s to introduce this, he says.
– The result is that imported food will strengthen its position in the Norwegian market. It’s a miserable agricultural policy, says the parliamentary representative.
Flat fee
The Government Platform states that the Government will “introduce a flat CO2 fee for all sectors of NOK 500 and gradually increase it during the period”. It entails NOK 500 per metrict ton of ton of CO2 equivalents.
Other relevant fees are increased accordingly.
-The proceeds are used to reduce other taxes and charges for affected groups to facilitate change. This will also include agriculture and fisheries, but seen in conjunction with compensatory measures in consultation with the industry, it is stated in the platform.
The Liberals (Venstre) has long been for a form of flat CO2 tax.
KrF says no
The Conservatives, the Progress Party and the Liberals must have the support of other parties to obtain a majority for their politics in the Parliament (Storting). In the previous period, The Christian DEmocrats (KrF) had a cooperation agreement with the other three parties on the bourgeois side, but now stands outside.
– When it comes to the point of introducing a CO2 tax for agriculture and fisheries and gradually stepping it up, we are not for it, says KrF’s agricultural spokesperson, Steinar Reiten, to NTB.
– It has always been our policy that agriculture and fisheries, which produce raw materials for the food industry and the food we are supposed to live of, we want to exempt, he explains.
Reiten informs that KrF’s parliamentary group will go through the platform on Wednesday.
Unclear formulation
The Norwegian Farmers Union considers the point of the CO2 tax as being unclear.
– We expect the government’s proposal to be about fossil emissions. The Parliament has previously considered similar proposals, and then everyone, including the government parties, was clear that biological processes should not be taxed, says the Farmers Union Leader, Peder Bartnes, to NTB.
The Farmers Union refers to the processing of the agricultural notice last spring. At the time the whole committee, including the three Government parties, concluded that “the biological processes in agriculture should not be taxed as proposed by the Green Tax Commission”
– In connection with the state budget for 2017, it said that “The Parliament calls on the Government to introduce a flat CO2 tax for the non-quota sector in 2018, with provisional exceptions for agriculture and the fishing industry.
For these two sectors, it was decided for a committee that would consider the possibility of “introducing a gradual increase in CO2 tax for these sectors and proposing other climate measures, provided that district policy, agricultural policy and fisheries policy objectives are safeguarded”.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
