LONDON

(REUTERS).- British auction houses fear that an EU levy on works of
art by
the likes of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, due to be introduced in
2012,
could undermine their position as world leaders in the field. The
British
government has a temporary exemption from the EU’s “droit de suite” levy
on the
re-sale price of works of art payable to the artist or the artist’s
inheritors
for 70 years after his or her death. Extending the artists’ resale right
beyond
living artists to those who have died in the last 70 years would
increase the
number of sales liable to the levy by four times, according to estimates
from
the British Art Market Federation.