Brussels, 02/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 2 December, the conference of the presidents of the groups of the European Parliament approved the decision to set in place a new special TAXE II committee, very much along the lines of the committee which preceded it. The mandate includes all of the main elements of that of the previous special committee, has the same structure and number of members and will also be in place for six months.
The new committee will be tasked with examining the practices of the member states and whether they are complying with their obligations, for instance under the directive on administrative cooperation, and will also assess how the Commission has implemented its obligations on state aid control and in its capacity as guardian of the Treaties. The special committee will build on and add to the work of the previous committee, to put any outstanding issues to bed (such as access to the documents of the Code of Conduct group). It will also monitor the implementation, by the member states and the competent European institutions, of the recommendations of the TAXE I committee and work at OECD and G20 level.
“Not only can the special committee continue its work as anticipated, but it is now also able to base its investigations on a significantly stronger mandate”, said Peter Simon, spokesperson of the S&D group for the TAXE committee. Eva Joly (Greens/EFA, France), vice-president of the TAXE committee, explained that a further hearing of the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, would be necessary, and that a similar invitation would be extended to the president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, to allow the two men to explain, in light of recent revelations, the obstructive actions of their respective governments to any EU initiative to tackle tax optimisation. The German MEP Fabio De Masi, shadow rapporteur of the GUE/NGL Group for the TAXE committee, also stressed the need for a hearing of these two political figures who, as he put it, “preached austerity while protecting the tax evasion strategies of multinationals”.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Parliament was to approve the creation of this TAXE II committee, at its plenary session. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)