Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-13-Speech-3-370"
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"en.20050413.23.3-370"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, my group has decided to join this oral question in order to supplement it. The question raised by Mr Ford relates in particular to compatibility with WTO rules. For my part, I would like to come back to a question that concerns the European Union and the situation within the EU’s borders.
During the last parliamentary term, the Ecofin Council agreed on the designation of around 60 national tax measures within the European Union that were considered to result in harmful competition as understood in particular in the work carried out within the OECD. The provisions of what is known as the Primarolo Code of Conduct – from the name of the official who chaired this working group – related both to standstill clauses and to rollback clauses, in other words to the gradual dismantling of the national provisions thus identified by common agreement within the Ecofin Council.
I have noticed that we no longer talk very much, neither within Parliament nor in the media, about the situation with regard to that dismantling process and I would like to know what the Commission’s opinion is on that process. I am well aware that the issue essentially falls within the competence of the Member States and that there is agreement between the Member States within the Ecofin Council. That said, competition policy is an exclusive competence of the EU and the Commission has a very important mission in that regard. From this point of view, therefore, I believe that the Commission should have a role of monitoring and providing incentives, or at least of warning and providing information, regarding verification of the commitments made within the Ecofin Council.
I will supplement this question by saying – and you know this as well as I do – that we are still a very long way from harmonisation of corporation tax and of the tax base within the EU, which were debated by the Prodi Commission on the basis of its work with regard to a common minimum level for company taxation within the EU. This is a development that my group considers desirable.
We therefore see the decisions taken within the Ecofin Council as a
and I really hope that the Commission will be able to comment on this process this evening and in the coming months. This is because I think that the problems we are encountering in some countries with regard to the draft European Constitution are not helping us, unfortunately, and that there is a legitimate concern that harmful competition will continue and get worse within the European Union. That is why, in my opinion, it is an extremely important policy mission to ensure that, at the very least, the commitments made within the Ecofin Council are met and that the Commission, just like Parliament, plays a part in the development of this process."@en1
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