Brussels, 27/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - Following the adoption, by 34 votes in favour, three against and seven abstentions, by the European Parliament's special committee on tax rulings (TAXE), of the report prepared by Portugal's Elisa Ferreira (S&D) and the German member Michael Theurer (ALDE), which lists recommendations to fight aggressive tax planning (see EUROPE 11418), the question of extending the mandate of this committee is reported to be the next issue to be decided upon.
This extension has been called for by the Greens/EFA, ALDE and GUE/NGL Groups, but has come up against the opposition of the EPP and CRE Groups. The coordinators of the political groups are expected to meet this Wednesday to see whether an agreement is possible on extending this committee “to secure access to documents and continue to question multinationals and states”, as Belgium's Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA) put it on the morning of Tuesday 27 October, at a press conference. The MEPs were allowed very limited access to the documents they requested from the code of conduct group on corporate taxation. Many of the documents had been obscured. On behalf of the S&D, Peter Simon told the plenary that he had learnt that the documents requested are reported to have been made available to research institutes which had made “ordinary requests in the framework of the right of access of European citizens”. Simon said that he wanted explanations.
Theurer referred to the refusal of certain states to allow the MEPs to see these documents. This is “unacceptable”. He also described as unacceptable the fact that the multinationals had not responded to the MEPs' invitation to appear before them. The TAXE committee decided to give these companies the benefit of the doubt and his re-invited them for 16 November. So far, only HSBC, Google and Facebook are reported to have accepted. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)