The Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU may hold a final technical meeting on the highly controversial proposal on public country-by-country reporting. After the technical meeting held on Wednesday 17 May, it called for new written contributions from the member states and, according to our information, will probably advise in the light of the comments it receives. One thing, however, appears certain: the dossier will not be moved up to the level of permanent representatives to the EU or the ministers.
At the start of the meeting, Cyprus, Sweden, Hungary and Austria are reported to have reiterated their opposition to the legal basis selected by the Commission for this text. The directive on accounting standards, modified to introduce country-by-country reporting, is a dossier to be dealt with under co-decision and only a qualified majority of member states is needed for an agreement. These countries argue that reporting is a taxation matter. The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, is said to agree, but during the session, Germany reported that it had not yet reached an official position.
On 17 May, the Presidency presented the delegations with a new proposed compromise (see EUROPE 11786). The countries most in favour of the text's aims - France, Spain, Italy and Greece - reportedly said that the amendments made by the Presidency, which have the effect of reducing the scope of application of the text, go against the spirit of the proposal. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)