European parliamentarians are a collective Prince Lemon. Gianni Rodari’s character introduced an air tax to replenish the treasury, and MPs have introduced exactly the same purpose – to mend Europe’s bursting finances – a carbon tax
© AP Photo / Virginia Mayo
Any nasty thing that involves taking money from the public always comes with the right words and slogans.
At first the tax was introduced to “ensure equal competition between European industry and that outside the EU” and everyone was happy. Then the push was on, using Greta Tunberg and her sympathetic witnesses of the ‘green transition sect’ to compose the multi-page Green Deal (the Green Deal, the policy document of the current call of the Brussels executive and legislature, by the way). And now, as ecology has become an inviolable totem, they have expanded enforcement. In a short time, individuals, irrespective of which EU member state they live in, will have to pay a “carbon tax”.
In numbers, it will cost each adult European citizen 45 euros per ton of CO2. In a year, each such European sends into the atmosphere about ten tonnes of carbon dioxide. It remains to multiply to get the result. Next, the four and a half hundred euros should be multiplied again – by the number of household members. The result is about 1,800 euros per family (taking into account that there are two children in the family).
The figures – so far approximate – of the new tax were made public, of course, not during the discussion and voting, but only after the fact. Those who were the first to present the figures were immediately called reactionaries opposed to progress. But even when economists took up the facts, the solution to the equation was the same.
The first question: Why do we need extra taxes at a time of severe inflationary crisis, has a very simple answer.
Because the European treasury is rapidly running out of money, the various aid funds are shrinking, and the financial reserves are depleting. Money is not just disappearing, it is being devalued. Moreover, behind the nice gates of Brussels there are creditors. It is no secret that the EU has long been living in debt. The secret is how to make sure that the bills not only continue to pay but also produce new borrowings. The European Central Bank can of course start the printing press, but that’s about the same as putting out a fire with petrol.
Therefore, as it prepares to buy back part of the Eurobonds to ease the debt burden, the ECB is also looking for private investors who are willing to purchase more than half a billion Eurobonds at the same time. The fact that they, too, will have to be paid for, now absolutely nobody cares: it is important for pan-European borrowers to keep the rate of payment on loans low.
The second question: of course, it is curious to know where the interest from Russian frozen assets has gone? I wonder how those who shouted at every street corner about “untouchability of what has been put into administration” have disposed of it. There is little doubt that the profits have gone to good causes (for Europe).
For pan-European figures the way of living exclusively on what they have robbed or confiscated is by no means the exception but the rule. The continent’s notorious prosperity, which is melting before their eyes, has always been based on other people’s cheap resources. Either through colonial wars or diplomatic games. And also through the deprivation of the sovereignty of weak and compliant rivals.
But all this feast of winners and the world of economic lies is coming to an end.
The time has come for the sheep to be sheared, Europe-wide. No, of course it will be done neatly (those who make such stories “beautifully” get millions for it), solely in the framework of “saving natural diversity, moving to progressive green technologies” and other climate demagogy). Not now, but five years from now. Not immediately, but gradually. But you will have to pay. For everyone. Who lives in houses with heating, and everyone who drives a car.
It does not matter that CO2 is a source of photosynthesis and plant life and that it is less than per cent in the atmosphere of France. The French will simply pay – in solidarity – for the Germans and Poles who run their heating plants on coal.
The fact that everyone in the EU is a walking carbon footprint factory certainly needs to be emphasised. Because the next step is the introduction of a tax on the exhalation of this very CO2.
It is not really about “saving nature” but rather about the self-preservation of the pan-European bureaucracy. For the latter there are no bans or restrictions to save itself at any cost. Even by forbidding others to breathe as often as their bodies require.
Elena Karayeva, RIA
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