A Question of Duty

At the Common Market's modern headquarters in Brussels, earnest discussions continue on one of the more controversial dilemmas facing the new Europe: whether to close the tax loopholes that have turned airports and other travel facilities in the Market's six (soon to be ten) nations into oases of cheap, duty-free liquor, perfumes, cameras and other items.

It is no small matter. Alitalia, KLM, Lufthansa and Sabena have appealed for preservation of duty-free shops, which are a source of considerable income for the airports. Also worried is British Railways, which operates ferries that carry 6,000,000 travelers across the English Channel every year. These tourists are such eager spenders that British Railways is building new ships with on-board duty-free "supermarkets" so capacious that passengers will be given self-service shopping carts to push around.

The shops stretch the spirit of Common Market tax laws, and the Eurocrats are of a mind to act--either by barring the shops to passengers traveling between Market countries, or by imposing a limit (perhaps $150) on duty-free purchases. But no one needs to fear a quick disappearance of $3.50 per quart Cutty Sark Scotch (at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport) or Gauloises at $1.75 a carton (at Paris' Orly). Market officials will not act at all before the end of 1973, if then.

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