According to Swedish news paper DN (Dagens Nyheter), the E.U. commission is about to vote on a proposal that might see an import tax of up to 14 percent to be imposed on mobile phones with a built in GPS receiver or TV functionality.

The E.U. has already imposed a range of insane import taxes on devices that can be used as a TV with an external tuner, and this now seems to affect mobile phones, as well; and if this tax is imposed, it's likely to kill off the DVB-H market which hasn't even taken off yet. The tax for GPS-enabled devices is apparently thanks to pressure from various European GPS device manufacturers based in Germany and the Netherlands.

The branch organization EICTA (European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association) is strongly opposed to this new import tax and it's backed by a wide range of companies such as Apple, Sony Ericsson, Cisco, Dell, Motorola and LG Electronics.

We're not sure why the E.U. would consider doing such a stupid thing, as it would increase the price of mobile devices with either feature (and some devices have both) by much more than the import tax. It's not hard to see the price of devices with these kind of features to increase by at least 25 percent, which consumers won't stand for.

We can only hope that this tax is voted against when the vote is being taken sometime after the Christmas holidays, although the proposal is being discussed tomorrow and according to DN, this is usually when people make their minds up for or against a new proposal.

More here (in Swedish)