Brussels, 07/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - In a document forwarded to IGC negotiators (who this week discussed extension of qualified majority: see EUROPE of 6 September, p.4), Germany proposes to renounce unanimity in Council for a series of decisions on taxation matters and for those concerning: appointments to main posts in the institutions - including that of the EU Council Secretary General; the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund; industrial policy; intellectual property; asylum and cooperation in justice and home affairs. Announcing this initiative, Financial Times Deutschland gives details on the proposals concerning taxation, in particular. Thus, according to the document, qualified majority should be applied in future to measures aimed at preventing tax fraud, tax evasion and harmful tax competition, as well as taxation measures linked to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and also to measures "affecting corporate taxation or other forms of direct taxation", to energy and environmental taxation, and possibly in "other fields of taxation on consumption". On the other hand, Germany considers that the rule of unanimity should above all be maintained for nearly all the decisions concerning VAT.