On Tuesday 16 May in Brussels, EU Finance Ministers will try to reach a unanimous political agreement (‘general approach’) on the eighth revision of the Directive on ‘administrative cooperation’ in the field of taxation (DAC8). They will discuss the CMDI legislative package to strengthen the European framework for bank crisis management and take stock of the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
DAC8. Presented in December 2022 by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13078/5, 13080/19), the eighth legislative revision of the ‘DAC’ Directive aims to include crypto-assets in the scope of EU law (see EUROPE 13180/24). It is intended to allow for the automatic exchange of information reported by crypto-asset service providers.
The Directive also provides for the generalisation of the use of the tax identification number to facilitate the exchange of information between Member States on cross-border advance rulings.
CMDI. The ‘Ecofin’ Council will hold a first exchange of views on the CMDI legislative package which aims, among other things, to facilitate the resolution of medium-sized European banks in case of failure by mobilising national bank deposit guarantee schemes under strict conditions (see EUROPE 13164/7, 13163/2).
This proposal responds to the request of the Eurogroup in June 2022, which failed to adopt a work programme to complete the banking union in the euro area by 2030.
The extension of the scope of the resolution remains a sensitive topic. For France, such an extension appears premature and seems to correspond to a too rapid mutualisation of the ‘Single Resolution Fund’ (SRF), which could more easily be called upon to finance a banking resolution. Germany also asks for the specificity of German intra-group insurance schemes (‘institutional protection schemes’ or IPS) to be taken into account when acting as deposit guarantee schemes.
The ‘Ecofin’ Council will also carry out its regular stocktaking of the socio-economic impact of Russia’s military aggression on Ukraine, with a particular focus on customs issues. The Commission will brief the Council on the implementation of EU sanctions against Russia, including the issue of circumvention of these sanctions which is the subject of the eleventh package currently on the table (see EUROPE 13177/13).
RRF. On Tuesday, the Ministers will also take stock of the implementation of the RRF, the financial arm of the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan.
One of the issues that will be discussed is the distribution of the loans that are still available, because the Member States have not made use of them for themselves. According to a Commission note, ten Member States (Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Croatia, Lithuania and Belgium) had requested new or additional loans by mid-April for a total of €122.6 billion, while around €225 billion of loans are available (see EUROPE 13180/25).
Finally, the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council and the European Commission will inform national delegations of the outcome of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in mid-April.
On Tuesday, in the margins of the ‘Ecofin Council’, the EU Finance Ministers will hold a dialogue with their counterparts from the Western Balkan countries and Turkey, with the aim of adopting joint conclusions. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion and Anne Damiani)