Environmental Taxation as a Tool for Sustainable Development Policy-State Comparison of Serbia and Application of Ecological Taxation Reform in European Union

National Strategy for Sustainable Development of Serbia has given clear guidelines for the direction of the economy, respect for ecological principles, development and implementation of better social and institutional policies. Environmental taxes and all other taxes, the fiscal revenue, but its application has special significance, because in addition to economic, it is ecological, institutional and social character, and as such it is an instrument of sustainable development. With this work the authors suggest moving the value of revenues from environmental taxes in the EU in the period 2005-2010. As this is a period characterized by economic problems caused by the crisis in all countries, there has been a decline in revenues from environmental taxes even in the most developed EU countries. n average, the EU has achieved the highest revenues from environmental taxes in 2008. The largest revenue from environmental taxes has made Germany (EUR 56.031,00 million) at the beginning of the period, while the lowest income in the value of (138,21 million EUR) has made Malta. It should be noted that a downward trend in the character of all countries except Slovenia and Estonia, which joined the EU in 2004. Income that is realized by the collection of environmental taxes is significant and is measured in tens of million, but there is a possibility that the position of business entities that pay for it because it makes it difficult to become less competitive. This paper provides an overview of key economic issues in the use of taxation as an instrument of environmental policy.