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“The
registration tax should not be included in the taxable
amount of VAT,” the European Commission said in a
statement.The requests take the form of a reasoned opinion
(the second step of the infringement procedure).
If
the relevant national legislations are not amended within
two months in order to comply with the respective reasoned
opinions, the Commission may decide to refer the matters
to the European Court of Justice.
The
European Commission also warned Malta and three other
member states in another ‘reasoned opinion’ over their
failure to implement in national law the Fifth Motor
Insurance Directive by the agreed date of June 11, 2007.
The directive updates and improves the EU legal framework
for motor insurance by making it easier to change insurer
and by upgrading the protection of victims.
“In
the absence of adequate implementation of the directive,
road traffic accident victims as well as policyholders in
the member states concerned will not be able to benefit
from their new rights,” the Commission pointed out.
The
warning was also issued against Greece, the Czech Republic
and Belgium.
In
a third case, Malta, along with another 10 member states,
received a reasoned opinion from the Commission calling it
to fully implement EU rules prohibiting discrimination in
employment and occupation on the grounds of religion and
belief, age, disability and sexual orientation. The
countries concerned the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland,
Greece, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands,
Finland and Sweden.
The
Employment Equality Directive was agreed in 2000 with a
deadline for implementation into national law of December
2003."A lot has already been done by Member States to
ensure that people have a right to be treated equally in
employment. But in some cases legislation still needs to
be improved if those rights are to be put into
practice," the Commission said.
Source
: Times of Malta -
Valletta,Malta, dated
31/01/2008
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