The Council of the EU is preparing to discuss the proposal for public country-by-country reporting (or CBCR) at the Competitiveness Council on 25 February, which would oblige companies to make public certain accounting data such as their turnover, profit or taxes paid (see EUROPE 12653/2).
The ambassadors of the Member States to the EU (Coreper) held a round table discussion on this subject on Wednesday 17 February and, according to a European source, a “qualified majority seems to have been reached”.
The reversal of Austria’s position (see EUROPE 12643/29) after the meeting of the EU Council’s national experts on 22 January (see EUROPE 12642/21) put an end to the blocking minority against the text and paved the way for the adoption of a position by the Council of the EU.
In a note prepared to guide the discussions, the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council lays all its cards on the table in their efforts to convince.
In particular, it notes that this is a proposal of general public interest, since it will enable stakeholders to gain a better understanding of the activities of companies. “Transparency is an important factor in the social responsibility of European companies”, it said.
The legal obligations set out in this proposal exclusively cover corporate reporting issues, which are intended to be publicly known, and will not provide any additional information to the tax authorities, it added, pointing out that similar reporting obligations are already imposed on banks.
The note invites Ministers to give their views on the latest draft of the text, in particular on the minor changes made to recitals 2, 6b, 10 and 12 during the Finnish Presidency, in order to make it clearer that the aim of this proposal is to increase transparency.
It should be remembered that since the meeting is taking place by videoconference due to the Covid-19 pandemic, no formal vote can be held. So it will only be a political debate on the follow-up to be given to this dossier. The debate will be public and broadcast online.
See the text that will be submitted to the ministers: https://bit.ly/3iaQIz1 (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)