Brussels, 04/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The conference of the presidents of the groups of the European Parliament has declined the request of the Italian MEP Sergio Cofferati (S&D) to delay the vote on the 'shareholders' rights' directive, for which he is rapporteur, until July. Cofferati received amendments on Wednesday lunchtime and wanted more time to negotiate to avoid ending up with a divided vote.
As the EPP, ALDE and ECR groups on Thursday decided against pushing the dossier back to the July plenary session, the vote on this directive will take place as scheduled on 10 June, when it will be time for the MEPs to stand up and be counted. The ALDE group will decide on its position next week, but it is believed that three quarters of its members are standing firmly behind their negotiator, Sweden's Cecilia Wikström. The French MEP Sylvie Goulard, of the same group, said that the rapporteur's text provides for “obligations which go an extremely long way” for all listed companies.
In any case, the negotiation mandate was adopted at the legal affairs committee of the Parliament, which prompted the three political groups to call for the text to be postponed until the plenary, a rare occurrence. On Wednesday 3 June, an EP source said that if the three groups were taking position against postponing the vote, this means that they do not want to negotiate it. The positions have long been out in the open, a Liberal source responded.
One of the unknown quantities is what will become of the 'country-by-country reporting', which will oblige multinationals to publish certain tax information. The Greens/EFA and S&D believe that this is the main stumbling block, whilst ALDE says that it also has problems with other unrelated provisions.
Several NGOs have called on the MEPs to approve this principle of declaration, but speaking via Business Europe, CBI and Medef, businesses are also pulling out all the stops to make sure that it is not pushed through.
The S&D group says that it is united over this issue, which will also have the support of the Greens group and the GUE/NGL. The Italian MEPs of the EFDD are also reported to be planning to vote in favour. At the Dutch parliament, the Liberals of the D66 voted in favour of this principle, whereas the EPP insists that the legal basis is inappropriate.
Furthermore, the Commission is expected to announce on 17 June that it is launching a public consultation into this issue. The fact that the European Parliament is going ahead with the vote without waiting for this consultation appears inappropriate in the eyes of some. At the legal affairs committee, the EPP members all voted against this provision. Observers reckon that they are about 70 votes short. Over at the EP, a warning has been issued: voting against a measure designed to increase tax transparency would undermine the credibility of the special TAXE committee of the EP. It has also been argued that it might backfire as a tactic, since the groups opposing the provisions in their current form could end up with a positive vote because they preferred not to negotiate. (Elodie Lamer)