On Tuesday 15 June, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) adopted - by 44 votes to 7 with 5 abstentions - a favourable opinion on the proposal to transform the VAT Committee into a comitology committee, which, acting by qualified majority, will oversee the adoption of implementing acts by the Commission in the field of VAT (see EUROPE 12627/14).
The rapporteur on this text, Irene Tinagli (S&D, Italy), had proposed that the European Parliament - which is only consulted on the matter - should approve her opinion without amendment and under the simplified procedure, but the ECR group decided to table seven amendments, aimed in particular at stressing that the European Parliament fully respects national fiscal sovereignty and unanimity voting on tax matters in the EU Council.
On Monday, the amendments were all rejected or declared inadmissible on the grounds that they did not directly relate to the text in question.
According to the proposal, comitology would only be applied for a limited set of rules implementing the provisions of the VAT Directive for which a common interpretation is necessary.
On the part of the EU Council, the text was discussed under the Portuguese Presidency, but unsurprisingly, many Member States expressed reservations, particularly with regard to the transfer of powers from the Council to the Commission and the switch to qualified majority voting (see EUROPE 12737/21).
See the opinion of the European Parliament: https://bit.ly/3vvib3k (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)