The European Commission announced on Wednesday it will take legal action against Portugal in the EU Court of Justice for failing to transpose EU rules on excise duties and harmonization of those related to alcohol and alcoholic beverages into national law.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg, Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento stated, “We will handle this dossier with the utmost urgency.”
“When we arrived [at the executive branch] a year ago – and I can only speak for the Ministry of Finance – we had about a dozen directives and regulations to transpose. Some deadlines had passed, others were about to expire, and we had the directive almost ready when parliament rejected the motion of confidence,” which left the government in a caretaker role and unable to proceed with the transposition, he explained.
“We have transposed most of these pending directives, but there are others that went to parliament and could not be approved due to the dissolution of parliament,” the minister added.
The situation, according to a statement from the European Commission, involves Portugal’s failure to notify the transposition of two EU laws on excise duties – Directive (EU) 2020/262 and Directive (EU) 2020/1151, which were supposed to be fully adopted by December 31, 2021.
All EU member states are required to enact the necessary legislation to transpose these directives and immediately communicate the text of these measures to the European Commission.
The information disclosed indicates that two letters of formal notice were sent on January 28, 2022, followed by reasoned opinions — the second stage of the infringement procedure, on July 15, 2022.
According to the European Commission, despite Portugal’s communication of several national measures, some provisions to fully transpose these directives are still missing.
Portugal is the only member state that has not fully transposed these directives into national law.
The European Commission believes that the efforts made by the competent authorities to date are insufficient, which led to the decision to initiate proceedings against Portugal in the EU Court of Justice, seeking financial sanctions.
The directives in question relate to the general regime of excise duties with common rules on the production, storage, and circulation of goods subject to these taxes, and to EU-wide certification for small alcohol producers, enabling them to more easily benefit from reduced excise duty rates across the EU.
