Bulgaria and all other EU states should be completely free to decide their excise duties for tobacco, alcohol and energy, according to the Bulgarian rightist SDS party.

"Bulgaria's government should consider bringing up the proposal for the abolishment of the excise duties' minimum rates in EU," was the party's official position, expressed on Tuesday.

"Bulgaria should unite with all other Central and Eastern European states against the minimum rates. Otherwise, EU will lag behind the rest of the civilized world," Martin Dimitrov, leader of SDS, has stated.

He pointed out that the impoverished countries on EU's external border are currently suffering from vast smuggling due to the partial restrictions imposed on duty rates.

"The average salary in Germany is 5 times bigger than Bulgaria's, therefore the excise duty rates should be 5 times lower than Germany's," according to Dimitrov.

Dimitrov's SDS party is a part of the Bulgarian rightist Blue Coalition, which initially supported the country's ruling centrist GERB government, but has grown increasingly critical towards it.

Although there is no full harmonization of the excise duty rates throughout the European Union has not been established be the Council of Ministers for the Internal Market, a series of minimum rates were agreed.

Above these minimum rates Member States retain sovereignty to set excise duty rates at levels they consider appropriate according to their own national circumstances

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