January 17 (SeeNews) - The share of environmental taxes collected as part of overall tax and social contributions in Bulgaria was the second-largest in the EU in 2021, at 9.1%, topped only by that in Greece with 9.5%, the European statistical office said.
Looking at other EU members from Southeast Europe (SEE), Croatia's environmental taxes accounted for the bloc's fourth-largest share of total tax revenue at 8.7%, with Slovenia and Romania also in the top ten, coming in at seventh and eight place respectively, Eurostat said in a data release on Monday.
With the exception of Greece, revenues from environmental taxes, which include energy, transport, pollution and resources levies, were below 2019 levels in the remaining four EU members from SEE, the data showed.
At 325.8 billion euro ($353.4 billion), or 2.2% of the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) for 2021, environmental tax revenue in the EU as a whole amounted to 5.4% of the total taxes and social contributions in 2021. This represented the same share as in 2020 but was lower than the 5.7% registered in 2019 prior to theCOVID-19 pandemic. Total revenue raised from environmental tax across the 27-member bloc was up from 300.2 billion euro collected in 2020, Eurostat added. The drop in 2020 was chiefly due to energy taxes, which were 13.7 percentage points lower in that year than in 2021. Energy taxes accounted for more than three-quarters of EU environmental tax revenue in 2021.
($ = 0.9218 euro)