Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-13-Speech-4-010-000"
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"en.20111013.3.4-010-000"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgetary Control and have thus, above all, had to examine what the Green Paper says about anti-fraud measures.
EUROFISC, a Belgian initiative for the establishment of a network, strikes me as being a very good initiative. I think that the Commission must realise that this creates added value. I also urge the Commission to ensure that it reports to Parliament and keeps us up to date on this matter so as to guarantee transparency.
These, I think, are the main points of my report, although there is also the matter of new technologies. These can help us to combat VAT fraud. I tend to think that if the recommendations of the rapporteur, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Budgetary Control are followed, the European Union will be a little stronger in tackling this important type of fraud.
This is something that is not in its infancy but has been around for some time. A few years ago, we saw the report of the Court of Auditors, which pointed very explicitly to a number of shortcomings in the system. At the time, we approved an own-initiative report on the matter, which, ultimately, became the Bowles report, which the rapporteur also refers to, and in which a series of recommendations are made which I hope will continue to be implemented.
The system does indeed have a number of weaknesses, a fact which leads to fraud on a massive scale. This is estimated to be worth EUR 80-100 billion, which is an enormous amount. This also makes up a large proportion of total fiscal fraud in the European Union, which is estimated to cost EUR 200-250 billion. If we also consider that VAT carousel fraud, and VAT fraud in general, accounts for between EUR 80 and 100 billion, I think that we must then have sufficient incentive to take action.
In this connection, most of what we are seeing is cross-border fraud. There is therefore a need for cross-border cooperation. This means cooperation between the Member States’ authorities, cooperation with Europol, cooperation with Eurojust, and cooperation with OLAF. That is one of the recommendations that we, the Committee on Budgetary Control, are very happy to make.
I thank the rapporteur and the entire Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for the fact that they incorporated much of my opinion into paragraphs 33 to 40 verbatim. This is important, and I thank the rapporteur and the Committee. It is rare for an opinion to be incorporated so meticulously.
The issue is one of cross-border cooperation, and we must ensure that accountability and risk awareness relating to this kind of fraud are increased in the Member States.
In my opinion, there is also a need for a cross-border and more uniform definition of VAT carousels. During my research and when drawing up my report, I spoke to many people in the field, including many inspectors, and there was one clear piece of advice that came up, which was to establish a comprehensive and uniform definition of VAT carousel fraud. Harmonised administrative penalties are also needed.
The Commission should now urgently bring forward proposals on simplifying and consolidating anti-fraud legislation in this area. I see this as an important demand. You should also do something – as the rapporteur has already said – to simplify and consolidate VAT legislation. Many inspectors working every day in the field, dealing every day with this sort of crime, tell us that this is cross-border fraud and that we therefore need to cooperate across those borders.
There is also a language barrier at play. If we have to study the VAT legislation of a particular Member State and we do not know its language, then we are faced with an enormous problem. Another of the pointers I have been given was that we should at least ensure that the VAT legislation of all Member States is translated into a number of basic languages. The Committee on Budgetary Control has opted for French, English and German, but we can discuss this."@en1
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