Brussels, 15/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - The various groups of the European Parliament joined forces on Monday 14 March to impress upon the Council their concerns at its decision to take position on country-by-country reporting of businesses to the tax administrations without having waited for the opinion of the MEPs.
In fact, it was a question of semantics over at the Council. Even the President-in-exercise of Ecofin, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, described the consensus reached on 8 March on the amendments to the Directive on administrative cooperation, bringing the OECD standard on country-by-country reporting into the EU, as a “political agreement”. The legal services of the Council had previously warned the member states that they could not conclude a political agreement until they had received the EP's opinion.
“Shortly after the Commission presented its proposal (…), we clearly communicated to the Council the timescale for the Parliament's work”, said the EP's rapporteur on this dossier, Dariusz Rosati (EPP, Poland), and the shadow rapporteurs of the S&D, ECR, ALDE, GUE/NGL and Greens/EFA groups, in a joint press release. Prior to the Council's agreement, Rosati asked it to wait for the EP's opinion (see EUROPE 11503). whilst welcoming the ambitious approach of the Dutch Presidency of the Council, the MEPs write: “we emphasise that the directly elected representatives of European citizens should be allowed to express their opinion before any formal political agreement on this Directive is reached in the Council and presented to the media”.
The Council proceeded in the same way for the previous amendments to the same directive, when it brought in the automatic exchange of information on tax rulings in October of last year (see EUROPE 11404). The Parliament is only consulted on taxation issues. “To further the spirit of good cooperation between the European Parliament and the Council, we urge member states to respect the European Parliament's role in shaping tax policy at the European level”, the MEPs conclude. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)