Delegations from EU Member States finally expressed their support for the horizontal approach proposed by the European Commission for the Whistleblowers Directive, as well as for maintaining a qualified majority decision-making process on tax matters, at the meeting of the Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) on Wednesday, 16 January.
The meeting was highly anticipated and should settle the question on the position of Member States on a controversial legal opinion of the Council, which proposed dividing said Directive into 5 legislative acts and introduced a new Article (TFEU article 115) for a specific legislative act on corporation tax, the adoption of which would have required unanimity in the Council (see EUROPE 12170, 12168).
Delegations would thus move towards a clear disavowal of the Council’s legal opinion. The meeting was certainly not “conclusive”, but showed a strong consensus of the Member States for a multiple legal basis (16 in the Commission’s proposal – see EUROPE 12004). Above all, the Member States rejected the proposal in Article 115 in favour of Article 114, which is dedicated to the internal market.
Italy, Germany, Croatia, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Greece clearly expressed their support of a single instrument requiring a qualified majority. Luxembourg also ended up joining the majority of the group and realized that it was not a legislative act for fiscal harmonisation.
Austria, however, was in favour of the legal opinion, but was willing to follow the majority. Hungary and Ireland, for their part, clearly expressed their support for the legal opinion.
However, some delegations, in particular those from the Netherlands, expressed reservations about the reference to Article 31 of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community.
The emerging position was welcomed in the European Parliament, in particular by the rapporteur, Virginie Rozière (S&D, France). “Positive signs after the COREPER”, she celebrated on her Twitter account, stressing that “the horizontal approach [is] maintained”, and that “taxation will remain within the scope of application”, before declaring: “Now the Member States must adopt their position and start negotiations with Parliament as soon as possible!” This should be done quickly, several diplomatic sources confirm, given that the content of the text has been agreed upon between the national delegations. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)