Despite the European Commission’s proposal to extend the possibility of a lowered VAT to digital publications, the commission of EU Member States' economics and finance ministers (Ecofin) did not come to an agreement on the issue today.

The Czech Republic vetoed the proposal, reportedly because the country had made the lowered VAT decision conditional on the approval of a so-called reverse-charging mechanism, a separate tax-related proposal.

European press publishers regretted the outcome: News Media Europe said it was disappointed with the result, calling it a “major setback in making today’s VAT regime fit for the digital age”. Also the Federation of German Newspaper Publishers said it regretted (in German) the council had not reached the long-overdue agreement.

The proposal is likely to be tackled at a later date however, but at the moment it is unclear if it will be raised at the next Ecofin meeting in July or only at a later stage, Kaleva reported (in Finnish).