Brussels, 05/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Greens/EFA group plans to invite the President of the Commission, Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, to come and address the special committee of the EP on tax rulings. It is hard to say whether the other groups will support this choice, but the Greens/EFA seem to be counting on public pressure to encourage their guests to accept their invitations.
The Green group will not be singling the Luxembourger out and states that it does not wish to turn the special committee into a public trial of the current President of the Commission. The Greens/EFA are also planning to invite a whole range of figures: three former Competition Commissioners, Mario Monti, Neelie Kroes and Joaquin Almunia, and three former Taxation Commissioners, Frits Bolkestein, László Kovács and Algirdas Šemeta. Marius Kohl of Luxembourg, known as 'Mr Tax Ruling', is also on the list, along with the current Finance Minister of the Grand Duchy, Pierre Gramegna, the former Belgian minister Didier Reynders, and his predecessor, Philippe Maystadt. However, the Greens/EFA decided against inviting Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium and current President of the ALDE group at the European Parliament.
Also on the list are the Dutch Finance Minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, and George Osborne, the British chancellor of the exchequer. The Greens/EFA would also like to invite representatives of IKEA, Amazon, Google, Starbucks, Apple, McDonald's, InBev, Fiat, Chrysler, U2/Rolling Stones, Vodafone and Boots. The audit firm PwC is also on the list.
The group will also request copies of all the documents of the 'code of conduct' group, but also the minutes of the meetings of the College of Commissioners at which corporate taxation was on the agenda, as well as an overview of the tax rulings granted by the state since 1991. The group also hopes to set in place a secure electronic box to protect 'whistleblowers'.
The ALDE members of the special committee will meet in Strasbourg on Monday to discuss their own ideas, and the S&D group on Tuesday. For the EPP group, we will have to wait and see. The special committee, which is chaired by Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France) will meet for the first time on Monday 9 March. (Elodie Lamer)