Debate: Reforming the EU list of tax havens
Date: WEDNESDAY, 20 JANUARY 2021
Speaker: Paul Tang
Country: Spain
Language: EN

I am convinced that FISC will manage to build broad majorities inside and outside this House, because what I have seen from discussions with the different political groups is that we have at least one notion of fairness in common — that is that everyone has to pay taxes.  That is the rule, and there are no exceptions to the rule. Not for billionaires, not for big polluters and not for big corporates. This brings me to the blacklist of tax havens: the list of non—cooperative jurisdictions. It was long a deep wish of the European Parliament to have this list. Indeed, in 2017 we got our way when it was established for the first time. It was and is a good idea to name, to shame and, above all, to change. Change because being on the list should have, and must have, real consequences — both for the countries on the list and for the businesses that operate from those countries. But the Member States that ultimately decide on the list have forgotten just one thing: to include actual tax havens.  The Tax Justice Network has shown that the countries included on the list are responsible for only 2% of global tax avoidance. By comparison, the Netherlands alone — the country where I come from — is responsible for 8.5%, and the number one offender is the Cayman Islands, responsible for 16.5%. The list does not work yet.  And the nasty truth is that it’s not getting better; it’s getting worse. The Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Jersey. These are some of the world’s most renowned tax havens and they have been removed from the list.  Commissioner and Minister, imagine the shock I and others in the House felt when we learned that the Cayman Islands, the number one tax haven in the world, had been removed as well. With the Member States failing to live up to their duty, it is for the Parliament to step up and tell it like it is. This list is confusing and ineffective. You have got to fix this. Give the list teeth with strict criteria and make it bite with defensive measures. No countries without a corporate tax system or with low effective corporate tax rates should go free. Europe is suffering from Member States’ failure to live up to their duty. Our citizens are losing EUR 140 billion each year from corporate income tax losses. This is money that could have been spent on housing, on health, on care or, if you wish, on income taxes.  Our citizens want something different. They expect something different. 86% of them say that they want the EU to fight tax avoidance and tax evasion. Go fix it! There is a democratic deficit. The citizen expects, yet the politicians do not deliver. A democratic deficit is not just that, but also the lack of transparency, because the discussions on taxation take place in the back rooms, although scrutiny and accountability are part and parcel of our democracy. Taxation seems to be a debate for technocrats alone at this stage, and this should be changed. What you see in the resolution is that it calls for democratic standards to be obeyed. More specifically, it calls on the Council to disclose the participating members, the topics of discussion, the technical assessments, the summaries, the minutes and the conclusions of these meetings.  It also calls on the Chair of the Code of Conduct Group to visit the FISC committee regularly. It is part and parcel of our democratic process; scrutiny and accountability are part of that.  The resolution also calls for us to look in the mirror, because to fight tax avoidance through non-EU tax havens adds up to hypocrisy if we don’t look in the mirror. When we do, we will find that it’s not a pretty sight. The Netherlands, which I already mentioned, together with Luxembourg, Ireland, Hungary and other EU States are responsible for one third of global tax avoidance. This is why in the resolution Parliament commits itself to examine each and every policy [...] (