On Thursday 14 June, the national experts of the Council resumed their work on the proposed compromise between member states, drawn up at the end of December, on country-by-country reporting. Despite high expectations and many calls from Parliament for progress (see EUROPE 12039), there is no significant breakthrough to report and, according to our information, positions have changed little.
For instance, Germany, to which all eyes were turned, is reported simply to have stated that its new government was still putting together its position. The Bulgarian Presidency of the Council said that the text still does not have the support needed and the positions lack the clarity to be able to put the dossier before the ambassadors of the member states to the EU (Coreper) to give the Council a mandate to start talks with Parliament.
According to a European source, technical work on this dossier has finished and there remains only the eminently political question of the legal base selected by the Commission (see EUROPE 11758). Several countries consider the text should be negotiated as a tax text, by unanimity and with Parliament simply consulted.
Austria, which will take over the Presidency from Bulgaria in July, is one of the member states which oppose this. Although it has undertaken to facilitate the negotiations in complete neutrality, there is still much uncertainty as to the fate of the proposal. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)