A few days ahead of the meeting of EU heads of state on the post-pandemic Recovery Plan (see EUROPE 12529/1), MEPs have stepped up public calls and proposals for new European taxes to finance economic recovery.
On Thursday 16 July, 70 of them demanded, in an op-ed published by Euractiv, a European financial transaction tax (FTT) worthy of the name, to finance the fight against Covid-19.
The majority of signatories are from the Greens/EFA and S&D groups, but there are also a few MEPs from the GUE/NGL and Renew Europe groups and a handful of non-attached MEPs. The only member of the EPP Group to sign the op-ed is the German Markus Pieper.
In their view, the current proposal for an FTT (see EUROPE 12387/19), presented last December by Germany and which would raise less than €4 billion per year in the 10 participating EU countries, is largely insufficient.
While the original FTT proposal was intended to cover all financial markets, players and products, its scope has been drastically reduced by removing transactions in derivatives from the tax base.
Nevertheless, according to the authors of the op-ed, a recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union has dispelled doubts about extraterritoriality issues in the tax on derivatives and should therefore pave the way for “a more ambitious agreement”.
A temporary European wealth tax
In another op-ed, published on Wednesday 15 July in the French newspaper Libération, 36 economists and politicians, including several MEPs from the S&D, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups, called for a temporary European wealth tax to pay off the debts generated by the Covid-19 crisis.
Their proposal aims to tax the net wealth and capital of the richest 1% of the population progressively, over 10 years, at EU level. The tax would not apply to persons with assets of less than €2 million. Its rate would be progressive according to wealth, rising to 1% for the richest 1%, 2% for the richest 0.1% and 3% for billionaires.
If the cost of managing the crisis amounts to 10 points of EU GDP, this tax will be enough to pay off this additional debt within a decade, the signatories of the op-ed believe.
Nevertheless, to be truly effective and avoid tax migration of the richest taxpayers, it should be adopted by all European countries, they stress.
On Monday 13 July, 84 millionaires had themselves called on governments around the world to use their large fortunes to finance economic recovery (see EUROPE 12526/12). (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)