Strasbourg, 24/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The work of the special TAXE committee of the European Parliament will be extended by six months by the conference of the Presidents, on Thursday 26 November. However, the continuation of the outlines of its current mandate was not certain on Tuesday afternoon.
Portugal's Elisa Ferreira (S&D), co-rapporteur alongside Michael Theurer of Germany (ALDE) for the TAXE committee, hopes for a “broader mandate, focusing less on the past”, her French colleague, Pervenche Berès, explained on Tuesday afternoon. Berès went on to say that the EPP group, particularly its German members, want to include VAT fraud in the mandate of TAXE.
However, the issue at the moment is first and foremost of a legal nature. Last week, the Greens/EFA group explained that if the final report was voted on before the conference of the presidents had approved the extension of the special committee's mandate, the committee would expire. However, the Greens/EFA dropped their request for the vote on the report to be delayed until after the conference of the presidents. They had been reassured by the other groups that the current mandate would be extended, due to a specific interpretation of the legal rules. On Tuesday afternoon, however, there were rumours of the existence of a legal services opinion requested by the President of the EP, Martin Schulz, on this very question. According to European Parliament sources, “the general interpretation is that with the vote, the special committee comes to an end. There is also a general intention to continue the work under a new mandate, but with the same members and the same rapporteurs”. Basically, the mandate would serve to assess the implementation of the laws which came into force after the LuxLeaks scandal, following which the committee was set in place.
This is somewhat different from what was being said on Tuesday morning. The Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups welcomed this agreement in extremis to extend the committee under its current mandate. They had been concerned that a new committee would be set up, with a scaled-down mandate. Fabio De Masi (GUE/NGL, Germany) and Eva Joly (Greens/EFA, France) said the same morning that they hoped to establish political responsibilities for the aggressive tax planning of multinationals which has had free rein in the EU in recent years. Italy's Gianni Pittella, leader of the S&D group at the EP, explained on Tuesday morning that on Thursday, the conference of the presidents would vote “on extending the TAXE committee for six months”.
Most of the groups seem geared up to continue the fight for access to the documents of the Code of Conduct group on corporate taxation. The MEPs were given restricted access to these documents and the number of pages had been blanked out by request of several states, Portugal's Marisa Matias (GUE/NGL), vice-president of the TAXE committee, explained. Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, Belgium) is hoping for the minutes of recent meetings of the Code of Conduct group to identify and name the countries which showed reluctance to measures to fight aggressive tax planning, even after the LuxLeaks scandal. However, it is difficult to say whether this will be covered by the new mandate. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)