Brussels gives up on taxing gas more than electricity, after only five years of trying

The European Commission is set to drop its overhaul of the Energy Taxation Directive, which would have taxed gas and other fossil fuels more heavily than electricity, Rapporteur reported from a draft of the Commission's 2027 work program. Business Post reports the plan to equalize taxes on gas and electricity is being dropped from the EU energy file.

The proposal, first tabled in 2021, needed all 27 governments to agree. It never got there. Last week Euronews reported that more than a dozen countries pushed back against taxing gas more than electricity. The European Parliament's legislative tracker shows no Council agreement in sight.

So the bloc that can regulate a bottle cap in an afternoon spent five years failing to agree on a tax, and is now declaring victory by deleting it. Until the work program is published, this remains a report based on a draft.