Brussels, 06/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - On the occasion o the EcoFin Council, Commissioner Frits Bolkestein announced that he had sent a letter on Friday to Swiss Finance Minister Kaspar Villiger calling for the "immediate" opening of negotiations on tax on savings. "I hope that Mr. Villiger will respond quickly and positively", he told the press. He did, however, acknowledge that, so far, "the Swiss government has insisted that negotiations should cover all issues at stake between the EU and Switzerland". "This does not correspond to the Commission's wishes, and should you deduce that that frustrates me, you'd be right", he told a journalist. The Swiss Ambassador to the EU, Dante Martinelli, confirmed in November that Switzerland wanted to begin negotiations on all six subjects that need agreeing on (tax on savings, pensions, services, Schengen and Dublin Conventions, training and youth, Media) at the same time, but that an "early harvest" was not yet out of the question (see EUROPE of 17 November)
Luxembourg made as condition for the final approval of the "fiscal package" at the end of this year, the conclusion of agreements with third countries (United States, Switzerland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino) and with the countries and territories associated with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (Anglo-Norman islands and Caribbean, Isle of Man). The idea is for these countries and territories to undertake to adopt "equivalent" measures to those implemented in the EU in order to avoid tax evasion. Luxembourg recalled before the EcoFin Council that for her "equivalent" meant: "the same measures". In other words, third countries and associated countries and territories should comply with the information system, to be set up in the EU from 2003 for twelve Member states and seven years later for Luxembourg, Belgium and Austria. These three countries will implement a system of a withholding tax during that period
Commissioner Bolkestein also spoke of the initial contacts with Andorra and Liechtenstein. In talks with the Commissioner on 19 February, Andorra's Finance Minister Mireia Maestre, said that she could envisage a system of a withholding tax, but could not commit herself to a system of information exchange. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands also presented the outcome of negotiations with their territories and associate countries, with, it seems, little progress in the first case and more in the second.
The Council, moreover, adopted, without discussion, the "standard directive" to be used for the exchange of information between national tax administrations, in the framework of the directive on the tax on savings. The communication of information will be automatic and occur once a year.