Brussels, 23/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - As the Fifteen had not managed in Nice to simplify the decision-making mechanism in the taxation area, the European Commission is re-assessing the strategy to be followed in this sensitive but nonetheless priority sector. The existence of fifteen different tax systems is at the origin of the persistent obstacles to cross-border activities in the Union that should be abolished if the aim fixed by the European Council of Lisbon to make the European Union's economy the most competitive is to be achieved. The European Executive is therefore reflecting upon ways to strengthen coordination between tax policies and, for the first time on Wednesday, will hold a policy debate in this connection.
Legislative measures have proved limited: sixteen draft directives presented in the nineties in the field of direct and indirect taxation are still on the table of the EU Council of Ministers. The keeping of unanimity in decision-making will not facilitate future debates. A note to be submitted to the College by Taxation Commissioner Frits Bolkestein presents the other roads to be explored: codes of conduct, multilateral surveillance systems, as practised for economic policies, or, mainly when it is a matter of applying the principles already set out in the Treaty, publication of communications, recommendations, guidelines and interpretative notes. The Commissioner also recommends recourse to enhanced cooperation, made possible by the Amsterdam Treaty and the Nice Facilities, on condition that it does not involve distortions to competition, and has instructed his services to identify those fields in which this could be envisaged. Finally, he provides for the multiplication of infringement procedures when national legislation is in breach of the Union Treaty, without waiting for complaints from taxpayers, as is often the case now. Tax on pensions or State aid of a fiscal nature are among the fields that he proposes monitoring closer.
This debate comes ahead of a communication on the European tax policy, that the European Commission is to adopt in the Spring. Mr. Bolkestein has also announced the forthcoming presentation of several initiatives, one of which a communication on pensions, especially tackling the tax problem, followed, in the Spring, be a report on company tax schemes in the different Member States, which should determine whether the establishment of a body of common rules should be envisaged. In the field of indirect taxation, the Commission gives itself as priority discussions on taxing energy products (a draft directive has been in the process of negotiations since 1997: Ed.) and the acceleration of reforms in the field of VAT. At the end of the year, it will present a study on taxing automobile vehicles and make proposals on the minimum level of excise duty for alcohol and tobacco, as well as on the computerisation and control system for levying excise duties.