Vol. 542 No. 5
133 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development his views on whether a European tax on nitrogenous fertiliser would make a useful contribution to the diminution of agricultural surpluses. [24799/01]
I am not aware of any EU proposal to introduce a European tax on nitrogen fertilisers. In a report published last year entitled, Environmental Taxes: Recent Development in Tools for Integration, the European Environment Agency found that "the regional differentiation of the problem of nitrogen surplus leads to the conclusion that decisions on the implementation of economic instruments to regulate nitrogen control are most likely to be made by individual countries rather than at EU level".
