The proposal for country-by-country tax transparency (‘reporting’), which would require companies to make certain accounting data public, such as turnover, profits and taxes paid, was put on the agenda of the Competitiveness Council on 28 November.
The initiative comes, according to one European source, from the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU, which is reportedly seeking to reach an “agreement” within the EU Council in order to start negotiations for a second rapid reading with the European Parliament.
The Finnish Presidency has undertaken to do its best to try to move the matter forward (see EUROPE 12355/7) and, after the failure of the discussions on 25 October in the Council’s Working Party on Company Law (see EUROPE 12357/10), it indicated that it was considering the next steps.
In the EU Council, the blockage has persisted for years and still has the same reason, namely the questioning by several Member States of the legal basis chosen by the Commission (see EUROPE 11758/9). On 25 October, several countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, Hungary, Poland and Sweden continued to consider that the text should be negotiated as a tax text, unanimously and simply after consulting the European Parliament. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)