The European Parliament's Conference of Presidents today adopted a new Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Measures Similar in Nature or Effect (“TAXE-2”). It adjourned however the decision about the mandate of the new committee for TAXE coordinators to form a compromise next week. TAXE had been set up to shed light on EU member states' sweetheart tax deals with multinational corporations.

GUE/NGL's TAXE shadow rapporteur Fabio De Masi comments: “We expect the new mandate to fully reflect the old mandate agreed in February and to produce a final report taking into account any new evidence produced by the committee. This has been publicly confirmed by the big groups in the European Parliament. Parliament's President Martin Schulz and the coalition of Socio-Democrats (S&D) and Conservatives (EPP) played dirty tricks all week long to avoid a TAXE follow-up or to heavily water down its mandate. TAXE coordinators now have to stand firm with their decision from 16 November to continue work under the current mandate.”

“Our job is not done. There was clear political obstruction from the EU Commission, the European Council and EU member states and crucial documents are still lacking. This has been confirmed by the report voted yesterday. Despite its positive elements, we abstained on the report as some crucial elements are lacking and the question of political responsibility is evaded. A large majority refused to name Juncker or Dijsselbloem as we proposed.”

“GUE/NGL has been calling for a full committee of inquiry for a long time. We are currently preparing an ECJ lawsuit for full document access. We have to end 'business as usual' when it comes to tax dumping. A key priority for us is to summon Jean-Claude Juncker a second time along with the President of the Eurogroup and Dutch Minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Both have been implicated by recent media reports with preventing firm action on corporate tax dodging over many years.”

GUE/NGL Press Contact:

Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20

Nikki Sullings + 32 483 03 55 75