French break law ir ank attacks
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by Nicky Clarke and Karen Miles
• The EC Commission is calling on British international operators to come forward with evidence of illegal action by French customs who are allegedly imposing fines of up to £800 on hauliers whose trucks are carrying extra fuel supplies in belly tanks.
The call follows complaints by operators that despite the Single European Market, fines for extra fuel supplies have continued at French ports.
The issue will be raised at next month's meeting of the Commission's Excise Committee, but it needs written evidence. So far only one written and a dozen verbal complaints have been received.
The Commission's mineral oil taxation officer, Arthur Kerrigan, says: "There is no legal basis for the French to fine for fuel in belly tanks. We hope to make the French conform at the meeting but if operators don't write then we can't take these complaints seriously." He advises fined operators to lodge a written complaint with French customs and demand a refund.
Last week Crawley, Sussexbased owner-driver Peter Perry was wrongly fined £800 in Caen for duty and for failing to declare that his vehicle was carrying up to 700 litres in a trailer tank. His vehicle, which was carrying a load for General Motors to Spain,was impounded until the fine was paid by the ferry operator, Brittany Ferries.
Leighton Buzzard-based Saunders Transport was also fined by French customs last week: they demanded £380 at Calais for having 900 litres of fuel in a belly tank.
The Commission holds that on 1 January EC law removed any limits on the quantity of taxed fuel operators may carry inside EC borders. The 200-litre limit remains for operators entering the EC.
The problem has arisen because the law states that the unlimited fuel allowed on domestic EC journeys must be carried in the "normal running tank". This has yet to be defined—but in the absence of any legal definition, the Commission has decided belly tanks are legitimate.
Fuel excise duty levels in other member states are similar to the UK's, but following the pound's devaluation it is cheaper for operators to carry extra fuel from home. Excise duty is 25p/lit in the UK, 28p in Italy. 22p in France, 23p in Germany, and only 17p in Luxembourg.
The Road Haulage Association says it has received complaints from "tens" of operators claiming they have been fined at French ports for fuel carried in extra tanks. RHA international controller Ute Bathurst says that in Caen 400 foreign vehicles were fined last week for carrying fuel in belly tanks. She accuses the French of earning easy revenue from British operators: "They are enforcing for the sake of merely making money," she says.
The Freight Transport Association's international controller, Dave Green, says: "We would obviously like a definition as wide as we can get but it needs to be fairly applied so operators know where they stand."
0 Operators who want to complain should write to the Commissioner for Indirect Taxation, Mme Scrivener, 200 rue de la Loire, 1049 Brussels.