Malmo, 23/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - Last Friday, EU Finance Ministers carried out, during their informal meeting in Malmo, an exchange of views over the future Union strategy concerning taxation, an area in which the work of the Council should be made more efficient", stated Bosse Ringholm, action Ecofin President. To achieve this, the Swedish Presidency proposed the creation of a high level group that would be responsible for assessing the conditions for better coordination between the Member States. The idea was favourably welcomed by most of the Member States, which entrusted the Presidency with drafting a more detailed proposal. Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom are opposed, while Greece, Denmark and Finland have not commented. One of the paths agreed upon would be to entrust the task to a different "sub-group" than the Coreper. The Member States remain divided over the way in which to achieve greater coordination and are far from forming a consensus around the idea raised by Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, responsible for taxation and the internal market. Mr Bolkestein proposed to follow the path of tax competition, while others, France leading, prefer a harmonisation of tax policies. The French Finance Minister, Laurent Fabius, stated on Saturday without ambiguity that the European Union should move towards "tax harmonisation and avoid damaging competition".
Little progress has been achieved in Malmo with regards to energy taxation linked to environmental protection, a question blocked since the end of the German Presidency. The Finance Ministers agreed over the Swedish proposal to define the structure of taxation (in relation to the polluting or not nature of the form of energy) before debating the setting of rates. This compromise, considered minimalist by some Member States, is of a nature to satisfy the countries most reticent to this form of taxation (Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland). Commissioner Bolkestein underlined that "the only way to discourage the use of polluting energy" is to increase the rates of taxation.
The Ecofin Council briefly raised a series of other questions. Thus the Ministers recognised the need to move forward over taxation of pensions and company revenues. As for indirect taxation, Mr Ringholm underlined the importance of the EU 15 reaching an agreement on VAT for electronic commerce and to ensure that the distribution of tax revenues is done in a fair manner between the States. Furthermore, the European Commission programme to improve the common VAT system received wide-ranging support. Finally, the EU 15 agreed over the need to increase administrative cooperation between the Member States to improve the fight against tax fraud.