Due to the scheduling of the Spring European Council, the Twenty-Eight will devote some of their discussions to economic and, in particular, fiscal questions, at the European summit to be held on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 March.
Over dinner on Thursday evening, the European leaders will discuss the taxation of digital platforms, the day after the Commission proposes a 3% tax on the gross income of certain activities of the digital giants (see other article and EUROPE 11982, 11983).
Most countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, welcome the Commission's initiative, which aims to bring the tax rules into line with the reality of a digital economy that derives its value from intangible assets. We support the work of the EU underway and hope that it will make it possible to launch a strong dynamic of talks at the level of the G20 and the OECD, these five countries state.
We must analyse and rethink the current rules and bring them into line with this new reality, said the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, in his letter of invitation to the member states.
Other countries, such as Ireland, described the proposal on the table as populist and called for the EU to line up behind the standards being put together at international level within the OECD and G20. They also considered that the proposal favours the 'large' member states, at the cost of the smaller ones.
The first camp, on the other hand, considers that this is just stalling tactics to delay the action and taxation of member states in the second camp, which have based their economic development on fiscally attracting large multinationals such as Apple and Facebook.
On economic questions, the leaders will take note of the solidity of growth in Europe. “Our economy continues to grow above expectations, employment is up and investments are recovering. However, economic growth has little point if it does not result in a better quality of life for our citizens”, Tusk said on Wednesday.
In the conclusions they will adopt, the member states will call for efforts to be stepped up to put into practice the European strategy for the (digital) single market, the Capital Markets Union and the Energy Union by the end of the current legislative period, to run until early 2019. The Commission will be called upon to present a progress report of the success and obstacles to the completion of the single market, for December. In the social field, the leaders will ask the Council to work on a proposal to create a European Employment Authority (see EUROPE 11980). Some countries are concerned about the increasing numbers of European agencies in the social and employment sector, one ambassador observed.
The European Council approved the socio-economic policy priorities (investment, budgetary rigour, structural reforms) that the member states must embed in their national and reform programmes by the end of April. They will adopt the specific recommendation for the Eurozone (see EUROPE 11985).
On Friday, the Eurozone summit of Nineteen will discuss the possibility of a specific fiscal capacity (see other article). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)