51It should be noted in that regard that it is not possible to conclude, on the basis of the arguments put forward by KLE, that there exists a principle to the effect that a duty cannot be levied at the same time on the consumption of electricity and on the source from which that energy is produced. It is apparent from page 5 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the Proposal for a Council Directive restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products (OJ 1997 C 139, p. 14), to which KLE refers, that, at the very most, ‘there are two possible ways of bringing electricity within the scope of the taxation arrangements: by taxing the fuels used in the production of electricity (input tax) or by taxing the electricity itself (output tax)’. It is not apparent from that proposal that those two methods are, as a matter of principle, mutually exclusive, the European Commission having accepted that they are complementary by reserving in that proposal the option for the Member States ‘to add an additional (non-harmonised) input tax in the case of non-environmentally desirable fuels’. Furthermore, nor is it apparent from that proposal that the Commission intended to propose that Member States should be under an obligation to exempt products that did not form part of the harmonised tax system from all forms of taxation.
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