Brussels, 03/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 3 February, the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament was hard at work, with the aim of being able to present a modified mandate for the committee of enquiry it is trying to set in place following the revelations of the LuxLeaks scandal, after the legal services of the EP presented an opinion which raises several questions.
The opinion of the EP's legal services stresses that the draft mandate “fails to specify the object of the investigation” and that there are “sufficient elements making it possible clearly to identify the alleged infringements and cases of misadministration, as well as the States and entities deemed responsible”, AFP reports. The opinion goes on to state that “a committee set up in this way could be prevented from carrying out its investigations” and, “if procedures are in place in the EU or at national level into any of the cases under examination, the committee of the European Parliament could not do its work or would have to suspend its enquiries”.
According to the Greens/EFA group, the legal services of the EP reported that the proposal for a committee of enquiry was legally possible, but that the mandate had to be revised.
The ecologist group argues that there are strong grounds to suspect violations of tax law, competition law and the principle of proper cooperation. It rejects the option called for by the two main groups of the EP plus ALDE to set up a special committee, which would find it harder to have access to documents, for example. The changes to be made are largely of a technical nature and “an enquiry committee into tax avoidance and dumping in Europe is both legally possible and politically essential”, stressed Belgium's Philippe Lamberts, co-president of the Greens/EFA group. It is a “question of political will”, he added. The Greens are calling on the conference of the presidents of the political groups, which is meeting on Thursday 5 February, to support this committee. The investigation launched the same day by the European Commission into a Belgian tax regime “shows once again how vital and legitimate the proposal of the European Greens to establish a parliamentary committee of enquiry to shed all possible light on past tax dumping practices is”, Lamberts added (see other article). (EL)