'Their advantages are that they can be implemented very quickly and do not impose any significant administrative burdens on economic operators,' he added.

Carousel fraud is perpetrated when high-value goods such as mobile phones are imported free of VAT from other EU countries and are then sold with VAT charged. The seller then pockets the VAT refund.

When an intra-Community transaction takes place, it currently takes between three and six months for information about that transaction to be sent to the member state in which the VAT is due.

Under the proposals for a directive and a regulation, this period will be reduced to between one and two months, thus enabling any fraud to be detected much faster, the commission said.

It is also proposing monthly collection of information on intra-Community purchases of goods or services where the buyer or customer is liable for VAT to make it easier to cross-check the data with that provided by suppliers.

Buyers or customers making transactions to a value of more than 200,000 eur per calendar year will be obliged to submit their VAT declarations monthly under the proposals.

'According to the various consultations carried out within the private sector, these measures will not impose an additional administrative burden on economic operators,' the commission said.

Other measures, such as a reverse charge system are still being discussed by EU finance ministers.