Strasbourg, 24/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - Not an easy task to be left of the political centre and European Parliament rapporteur on a subject linked to tax policy on Europe. Sahra Wagenknecht (GUE/NGL, Germany) withdrew her name from the report on the contribution of tax and customs policies to the Lisbon strategy, which was adopted on Wednesday 24 October by the MEPs at their plenary session (see EUROPE 9057). This report has been completely rewritten since it made its appearance at the Parliamentary committee on economic and monetary affairs (see EUROPE 9520) and is now “broadly aligned to the political objectives of the EPP-ED group”, as a Finnish member of the group, Piia-Noora Kauppi, coordinator of the Christian Democrat Group on this dossier, commented in a press release. “Tax competition guarantees competitiveness, leads to lower taxation and promotes economic growth”, she added (our translation).
The MEPs observed that despite the reduction in corporate tax rates, public revenue has increased overall and tax pressure continues to be higher in Europe than other countries of the OECD zone. However, they rejected an amendment tabled by the PES group, stipulating that the trend towards reducing corporate tax rates may have “negative effects on the viability of the public finances in the long-term, in certain Member States”, and similar effects on the funding of social security.
On the harmonisation of the corporate tax base, the EP supports “the efforts of the Commission to establish a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) across Europe”. The EP adopted part of an amendment tabled by the EPP-ED group, whereby such a policy “can be pursued by using the reinforced cooperation mechanism, which is already provided for in the Treaties”. The EP preferred to leave out the end of this amendment, which specified that “no Member State can be obliged to take part” in this legislative initiative of the European Commission, which is anticipated for mid-2008.
The MEPs support the opinion of the parliamentary committee that “it is necessary to adopt a radically new approach to customs duty policy” (see EUROPE 9457). Rejecting “any strategy based on setting a minimum tax rate at Community level”, they would prefer instead to see a “general code of conduct” drawn up to replace the provisions of directive 92/84/EC. (M.B.)