On Tuesday 6 December, the European finance ministers failed to find a common vision on the second version of the anti-tax avoidance directive (ATAD2), which specifically aims to respond to hybrid mismatch situations between an EU country and a third country.
Despite eight draft compromises in the final home straight alone, concerns remained and were summed up by the Slovak finance minister, Peter Kazimir. These concerns have to do with certain exemptions for the financial sector and the date of implementation of the text, but there were also a number of parliamentary reservations still in place.
Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Romania, Ireland, Poland, Croatia and the Czech Republic said that they could support the most recent draft compromise sent in on Monday evening, although some of these countries qualified their support in various ways.
Some member states criticised the speed with which the work had moved forward, leaving their governments and parliaments without enough time to digest the text. Austria expressed concerns that the work prioritised speed over quality. Estonia and Slovenia referred to their Parliamentary reservations. Malta also wishes to consult its parliament, but has pledged to keep up the pace under its Presidency.
As regards the exemptions for the financial sector, which the UK has called for, Slovenia, Austria, France, the Netherlands and Greece opposed these, as did Italy, although it was prepared to get behind the compromise. Luxembourg said that as they stand, some of these exemptions could have an impact on the prudential rules for the financial sector. As the final compromise had only been put into their hands a few hours earlier, there had been no time to assess this impact, the minister added.
The British representative explained that it is not about exemptions for the financial sector, it is about understanding how the financial sector works, adding that he would not be prepared to go any farther than the compromise of the day before.
Lastly, the Netherlands regretted the fact that nothing had been added to the text to allow them to wait until 2024 to implement it (rather than in 2019). This will have a huge impact on the Netherlands, where American companies invest massively, the Dutch representative pointed out.
In any event, the Slovak minister took note of the fact that only article 9.4 was still an issue, as the rest of the text has now been evened out. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)