On Wednesday, 10 June, the Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) approved the Ecofin Council's report to the European Council on tax issues and the report of the Code of Conduct Group, which gives an overview of the progress made in this area during the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council (see EUROPE 12501/19).
They also gave their green light to EU Council conclusions, of which EUROPE received a copy, which acknowledge that the Covid-19 pandemic has had “an impact on the ability of many jurisdictions to take on new commitments or deliver on their past commitments, as well as on the overall working methods of the Group”.
For example, the EU Council takes the view that the completion of the screening of the jurisdictions that have foreign source income exemption regimes in place, the monitoring of the implementation of the country by country reporting anti-BEPS minimum standard as well as the screening of the three jurisdictions added to the geographical scope of the EU listing exercise in 2019 should be postponed until such time when the Group will consider that circumstances allow to ask third jurisdictions to take commitments to address the deficiencies concerned.
The text also calls for the continuation of the update of the European 'black' list of non-cooperative jurisdictions in the tax field, scheduled for October 2020, in particular to remove from the list those jurisdictions that have fulfilled their commitments and to extend the deadlines in Annex II, which expire at the end of August.
The conclusions will be formally adopted by written procedure. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)