Spain told to raise green taxes by the OECD

Spain needs to do more to protect the environment, including scrapping harmful subsidies, according to a new report.
The report, released yesterday  by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), gives 28 recommendations on how Spain could be more environmentally friendly.
While the report praised Spain on improving its environmental performance since the turn of the century, it underlined that there was still plenty of work to be done.
“There is scope to both strengthen and simplify environmental policies to achieve growth that is robust, inclusive and green,” said OECD secretary-general, Angel Gurría.
It suggests that Spain could do more to simplify and streamline its, often complicated, environmental regulations as “its complex rules and decentralised management still create heavy green tape burdens on firms”, according to the report.
The report points out that green tax revenue in Spain has fallen to among the lowest in Europe at 1.6 percent of GDP in 2012, while labour taxes have risen.
The report supports the idea of a reform to broaden and raise environmental taxes: “raising the diesel tax in line with the petrol tax, for example, could help preserve the environment.”