EU Claims Agreement Imminent On Swiss Re-Export Tax Dispute

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

20 April 2004

As Swiss and EU negotiating teams attempted to advance negotiations surrounding Switzerland’s adoption of the Savings Tax Directive last Wednesday, the EU announced that a separate dispute involving a customs levy on Swiss exports could be resolved in the coming weeks.

“We are confident that we will have a solution by the beginning of May. And this solution will, of course, try to minimise any trade anomalies between Switzerland and the EU,” stated Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the Commission.

However, Luzius Wasescha, a senior Swiss trade official, downplayed any idea that a deal favourable to Switzerland was in the pipeline, noting that it was “too early to be triumphant or to celebrate.”

The dispute flared after the Swiss government expressed anger last February at the imposition of an apparently new tax on re-exports to the EU on certain Swiss-made products. However, the European Commission has insisted that the tax on goods re-exported to the EU from Switzerland was “not new” and that all member states, with the exception of Germany, had been imposing the tax for some time.

Officials from both Switzerland and the EU have denied suggestions from some observers that the customs levy was imposed to increase the pressure on the Swiss authorities to sign up to the Savings Tax Directive.

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