Brussels, 09/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - The member states of the EU are open to giving the MEPs of the special TAXE II committee on tax rulings access to the informal minutes of the meetings of the 'Code of Conduct' group, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, wrote to the President of the EP, Martin Schulz, on 1 February.
“In order not to undermine the decision-making process, documents or parts of documents that relate to issues which are still under discussion at the Code of Conduct group, can however only be made available in a meeting in camera”, Juncker writes. The practical details of this meeting have still to be agreed between the services of the Commission and representatives of the TAXE II committee. The member states insisted on the precondition of access behind closed doors and following the signature of a declaration of confidentiality, a Council source explained.
The MEP Fabio De Masi (GUE/NGL, Germany) said that he would rather wait and see which documents are actually made available to the MEPs and whether any of them have been blanked out by request of certain member states, as was the case with other documents consulted by the EP. According to several sources, these minutes are not expected to be blanked out, but it is possible that they will be rather general. De Masi told EUROPE that the favourable decision announced by Juncker would have no effect on the legal proceedings he has instituted before the Court of Justice of the EU. “We have to see what the Commission will concretely reveal”, he explained. The Court may reach its decision soon if it deals with the case under the accelerated procedure.
It also appears that there is consensus among the major groups not to invite Juncker to appear before the TAXE II committee again. The President of the Eurogroup and Dutch Finance Minister is also theoretically expected to escape this, as he is already set to attend a meeting of the committee on economic and monetary affairs on 18 January. Eric Wiebes, the Dutch secretary of state for finances, is expected to appear before the committee at the end of this month. The European Commissioner for Taxation, Pierre Moscovici, will be there on 17 February and the Director General of the Directorate for Taxation and Customs Union of the Commission, Stephen Quest, will attend the meeting of the coordinators of the TAXE committee on 22 February. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)