Brussels, 13/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament will wait and see how discussions move forward on country-by-country tax transparency (reporting) before establishing the position it will adopt in negotiations on the shareholders' rights directive, aiming to promote the long-term commitment of these.
In its negotiating position, the EP has included provisions on country-by-country tax transparency. However, the Council has stated that it does not want these in that particular legislative vehicle, given that on 12 April of this year, the Commission proposed including similar provisions in the directive on accounting standards.
In a short speech before the committee on legal affairs (juri), on Monday 13 June, the rapporteur on this dossier, Italy's Sergio Cofferati (S&D), said that the majority of parliamentary negotiators wanted to keep this tax reporting in the text. “Everything that deals with transparency and tax fairness is important for companies”, he explained. He referred to an agreement in the inter-institutional negotiations on the identification of shareholders, and on the transparency of companies providing advisory services in votes in general meetings ('proxy advisers'). In the questions still outstanding, he referred to the transparency of asset managers and transactions between related parties. “I am confident that we will be able to reach agreement on these issues”, he said. “We're going to wait to see how far it will go on country-by-country reporting, and will be able to see what position we can take. We don't give up on this issue (reporting)”, he said. No other MEP took the floor of the juri committee. France recently accused the EP of holding the text to ransom (see EUROPE 11566). The next trialogue meeting will take place on 27 June. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)