MAASTRICHT.- According to a report that will soon be published, the European Union’s "blinkered and restrictive bureaucracy" is seriously damaging the Continent’s £8 billion-a-year art market. The organizers of the Maastricht art fair have commissioned this survey into Value Added Tax in the European Union. The survey reveals a chaotic situation in what is supposed to be a free trade area.
The VAT rates vary in the EU and the regulations are very complicated. This drives business moistly to the United States.
In 2001 the American art market was higher than the overall total for Europe for the first time. The British market, the largest in the EU, has suffered.