Brussels, 28/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference on Monday 28 November 2011, Emer Traynor, a spokesperson for EU Taxation Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said that the commissioner would be deciding very shortly on the controversial tax deals signed by Germany and Switzerland, and the United Kingdom and Switzerland, on undeclared savings deposited in Switzerland by nationals of the two EU member states, but would not say when the decision might be announced. The spokesperson commented that the talks with the UK and Germany had been constructive.
The taxation commissioner recently criticised various aspects of the tax deals that encroach on the Commission's exclusive powers of negotiation (see EUROPE 10499). Negotiations are ongoing with Germany and the UK to get the offending articles changed so that they comply with EU rules. The spokesperson said that changes were possible because neither country's parliament had yet ratified the Swiss deals. The Commission is not taking an aggressive line because it says that both Germany and the UK support the Commission's work to improve fiscal governance and the important thing as far as the commissioner is concerned is finding the best way of stopping tax evasion and coordinating this at EU level. Alongside the Commission's desire to draw a line under tax deals that bypass the EU level and the Commission's attempts to set up an automatic tax office information exchange system to prevent people from keeping deposits in one country secret from another, France refused on Thursday 24 November to go along with an offer from Switzerland to negotiate a similar deal to the ones with Germany and the UK. (FG/transl.fl)