The EU Ministers for Competitiveness and Industry will discuss national recovery plans within the framework of the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan, as well as the proposal for a public country-by-country reporting directive, at an informal meeting by videoconference on Thursday 25 February, in the presence of the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, and the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton.
“The Presidency considers that the EU Competitiveness Council can play an important role in coordinating of the process of the European semester and in particularly the deployment of the recovery and resilience facility and the implementation of the national recovery and resilience plans”, a diplomatic source said on Tuesday 23 February.
Thus, the ministers will be invited by the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU to express their views on how to use the national recovery plans to achieve the objectives of EU industrial policy.
The aim is to feed the budgetary process within the framework of the ‘European Semester’, says the Presidency.
Here, one of the points that the Portuguese authorities want to raise, concerns the development of multinational projects, which is lacking in the draft national plans that have so far been submitted to the European Commission (see EUROPE 12652/4).
Tax transparency
In addition, ministers will discuss the proposal for ‘public country-by-country reporting’ (CBCR), which would require companies to make public certain accounting data such as turnover, profits and taxes paid (see EUROPE 12653/2).
“After five years of negotiations in the EU Council, the Portuguese Presidency has committed to try and move forward with this file”, a European diplomat said on Tuesday.
As the meeting was held by videoconference due to the Covid-19 pandemic, no formal vote could be held. It will therefore only be a political debate on the latest version of the text, which will be broadcast online.
“The Presidency will ensure the appropriate follow-up after the debate, depending on its results”, said the diplomat.
The outcome of last week’s meeting of the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) had, in any case, hinted that a qualified majority of countries could now be reached on the compromise text (see EUROPE 12660/7).
One should bear in mind that it was Austria’s reversal of position (see EUROPE 12643/29) at the end of January that put an end to the blocking minority formed against the text and paved the way for the EU Council to adopt a position.
The acceleration of the discussions has revived the lobbying around this issue. Prior to the meeting, BusinessEurope had written to the Portuguese Minister of Economy, Pedro Siza Vieira, who will chair the EU Competitiveness Council on Thursday, expressing its concerns about the text which, in its opinion, would put European companies at a commercial disadvantage.
In particular, the organisation claims that the text would undermine the role of tax authorities and would not support an informed discussion of corporate tax obligations, which could in fine lead to “misguided interpretation by the public and unjustified reputational damage to the companies”.
The text was last presented at the EU Competitiveness Council (see EUROPE 12379/13) in November 2019. At the time, it was only one vote short of the required majority on the text.
New consumer agenda
The second debate in the morning will focus on the role of consumers in the economic recovery and in particular the new consumer agenda for the period 2021-2025 (see EUROPE 12663/21).
Here, the Presidency will seek to sound out ministers on the role of consumer “resilience” in strengthening the competitiveness of the single market.
Vaccines
Finally, the European Commission will keep the ministers informed of the work carried out by the new European ‘taskforce’ for the industrial production in the EU of Covid-19 vaccines, led by Commissioner Thierry Breton (see EUROPE 12663/9). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens and Marion Fontana)