Standard EU crap. They simply fail to understand that they are themselves the greatest barrier to "European Integration".

If only they'd just set up a proper free-trade area and gone home. Alas, that would mean M Lamassoure and many others would have to find prooper jobs.

I think he means he wants our money Perry.
And being French and a Politician...
Entitlement doesn't come into it.

Trust our politicians to sign up with the Sopranos!

How do you tax this? Surely we're talking some kinda micro-payment here...

His statement is a complete non-sequitor. Basically, he's saying: The sky is blue, therefore, I'm hungry.

The PC breakout, along with Apple's Macs, of course, caught just about every political type completely off guard.

The continuing spread, and mushrooming increase, in computer apps and various peripheral devices is driving many of these pols absolutely nuts because they can't figure out how to control it, how to tax it, and, especially, how to intimidate it, in order to turn it into another tool for state purposes instead of the icky, messy, chaotic thing that now exists for the benefit of (ugh) people and commerce.

In the US there are the campaign laws, various attempts to apply taxes, and, frequently, absolutely hilarious articles recounting the frustration of some pol who simply can't figure out how to make a buck off all this activity.

Gotta love that free speech thing. Most of computer traffic is just that, speech of one kind or another, and that puts it out of bounds under our 1st Amendment.

Even funnier, as an aside, are the sporadic updates on the attempts by agencies like the Internal Revenue or FBI to develop their own up-to-date computer systems.

Last time I saw an article, it recounted the collapse of the latest FBI nationwide computer system after spending umpteen billion dollars on it over the last 10 years or so. The IRS system is so bad most reports are about the problems they are having just keeping it running.

None of this is bad news for lovers of freedom, of course, as the problems of befuddled agents, special or not, is music to any citizen's ears, especially if it means they can't do so many audits this tax year.

Bureaucrats---behind the times, behind the curve, and behind the wave. Sure seem to be a lot of behinds of one kind or another in those fancy state office buildings. No wonder I hear all that whinnying when I drive past.

Very Retired,
IIRC,the problem is the systems are sold to government officials,those in charge of the agencies are instructed in their use....then heads of departments...none of these undersatand anything about the systems,so those who actually use them are left to sort it out.

Other ideas include a tax on airline tickets and an extra levy on oil companies.

From M Lamassoure's plans as reported by The Times.

So, in order to enable Europeans to do business together they want to make it more expensive for us to travel as well as communicate!

Cheap flights and communications have done more to bring the people of Europe together than those wankers in Brussels could ever do in a million years.

Amen Ron!
My wife works for the M.O.D
Ah but it's late and I wont frighten you all now
with telling you how nimble our defence sytems are in the event of a bit of fluff getting down the back of the panel.
I'll leave you to petrify till tomorrow!
My mum is over for the weekend. Why should I be the only one to suffer!

If an English politician had said that we'd laugh and put it down to Prescott-style stupidity. When a French politician says that one must ask the question, "where's the mustard?"and, given the extreme level of self-interest that one finds within French politics, one surely has to question M.Lamassoure's motives for this - perhaps he has an interest in an SMS wholesaler?

If an English politician had said that we'd laugh and put it down to Prescott-style stupidity.

Aside from the quibble that it would more likely be a Scotch politician, standby for an announcement any day now. Even if you accept the rightness of and need for taxes to be levied (and apart from arming defence forces I don't) most taxes which exist are as absurd and indifensible as this proposal. I still haven't come across anything to beat inhertance tax for both it's absurdity and genuinely wicked intent.

Europe has never be a liberal democracy,this lot just want to get back to the Ancien Regime as soon as possible.
The Salt Tax will be next

They'll find a way........sooner or later they'll find a way.
It will be applied in tiny, tiny increments which we 'won't notice' or reckon as unimportant. The sorrriest day was when the EEC metamorphasised into the EU. No butterfly that, a vampire bat! Rue the day.

Maine's very own dolt Senator Olympia Snowe has propossed a tax on internet phone calls. Many states, who are short of money as a result of wasting in on daft programs, have been greedily eyeing the internet with bad intent.

Someone else is Maine is upset all Mainers don't have "equal access" to all political sites with video/audio content.

No doubt Maine is eyeing this French idea with great interest.

The farce of Msr. Lamassoure's comments is that you benefit from email and SMS messages, because the EU has benevolently chosen to not restrict or censor them. By his logic, you euros should be paying them (i.e. bribing them) to continue their benevolent despotic laissez faire attitude toward these media.

In an era when people say that national identity is on the wane, I found it rather refreshing to see a Frenchman proposing an updated version of the gabelle. Even more eye opening was the remarkable similarity in rationale betwixt the old and new taxes

Tax on e-mail ... but how? I would say that is something near impossible. Anyhow: how long will it take before a new standard for "i-post", or whatever, is defined and implmented by the European ISPs? This is the internet! Tax is a no go! :)