Speeches

Madam President, thank you colleagues for this exchange and many welcoming words. Thanks a lot to the Commission, in particular to the commitment in the opening speech to include most of our ideas in the DAC8 revision. Now, in the closing speech, some we will see and hope that it will be rather most than some. We are looking forward to what will be coming, but thanks for this commitment. We would welcome also a clear commitment to start immediately on infringement proceedings when it comes to the lack of effective implementation, which is actually the key issue of our report. I would like to say on the access to documents that we regarded as highly doubtful that Parliament can be treated less welcoming by the Commission and the Member States than an individual citizen. You referred to the framework agreement and therefore the part in my report, and nobody has questioned that. We are calling on Parliament to use all legal means at its disposal in order to get the needed documents. This is actually what we now have to do up to a court proceeding if this is in the end needed, because this infringement, this report on effective implementation, we couldn’t do it properly. We say this also clearly: it is an incomplete report and we have to complete that work but for this, we need the documents from the Member States and, if needed, we have to go to court for this. Then we have the debate on tax sovereignty. I only would like to say that the Treaty doesn’t give all the competences over direct taxation to the Member States. This is an incorrect reading of the Treaty. It only puts a unanimity requirement for this, and this has led to the unfortunate situation that for this directive, we are now working on the eighth version in only 15 years. So this unanimity requirement leads to a lack of good lawmaking and excessive bureaucracy to companies and obliges taxpayers in order to deal with these ever changing rules. Therefore, I will welcome if you could support my amendment to a move towards a majority voting. Equally, tax competition. The amendment of the ECR, which, by the way, unfortunately did not contribute to the work unlike all the other groups, the amendment to support tax competition and see the welcoming and positive aspects. It has fallen out of time in a period when at OECD level, on global level, at European level, we move from a tax-competition model to a tax-cooperation model and therefore, colleagues, please do not support such damaging wording. Last point, when it comes to naming problems, this Parliament must be courageous. It is not good that some groups have asked for deleting Romania from the findings, and it’s equally not good not to speak clearly about new revelations on Luxembourg. Let us be courageous and don’t do party politics on this. Let us name and shame where things are not working well, and therefore I appeal to your support to my report and also refuting all the weakening amendments. Thanks for your work and we will continue together on this.

Madam President, dear Commissioner Gentiloni and dear colleagues, first of all we are discussing today the first implementation report of the European Parliament ever done in the area of economic and monetary policy. Our implementation report deals with the important implementation of EU rules when it comes to the exchange of tax information between Member States. Faced with hundreds of billions of taxes lost through international tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax fraud, this is a topic of high interest to the citizens, who of course would like to see tax justice and fair competition in our common market. I would like to thank warmly all the colleagues from the different political groups who have been contributing to that important work over much more than a year. However, our work to assess the effectiveness of the first four directives on administrative cooperation and tax matters was hampered by the refusal of the Member States, with the notable exception of Sweden and Finland, to provide access to the documents needed for our work. The European Commission, too, interpreted EU law in a very narrow way, which is unfriendly to Parliament’s work and refused also access to information available to the Commission, which would have been available very likely to citizens if they went to court. I would therefore like to recall that according to the European Treaties, the European Parliament has the right and the responsibility to control the Commission in its work, and therefore needs the respective information. Nevertheless, we were able to gain significant insights based on publicly available information, studies and accounts provided by several whistle-blowers. I would also like to highlight the report by the European Court of Auditors and the study commissioned by the European Parliament’s research service, which significantly helped us to identify areas for improvement. Thank you to all those who contributed. Eleven years ago, the first Directive on administrative cooperation in tax matters laid the groundwork for tax administrations to support each other in the fight against tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax fraud across Europe. With each of six extensions, important categories of tax-relevant data were included step by step under the Directive. This is great progress, however still unfinished, but this progress in European tax law has not been matched with equal ambition when it comes to the effective implementation of these rules in the Member States. While 16 Member States have implemented the rules for the automatic exchange of tax information within the EU sufficiently, we found shortcomings in 10 Member States, namely Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland and the Slovak Republic. Most worryingly, Romania does not have the legal framework in place, which is a prerequisite for the automatic exchange of tax information. Similarly, reviews of the measures taken by the Member States to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing reveal worrying deficiencies with direct effect on the effective information exchange on tax matters. Of the 18 Member States reviewed, none of them received a rating indicating a high level of effectiveness. This indicates a clear lack of effective implementation of the measures needed to prevent financial crime. Despite these internationally documented shortcomings in the implementation of EU law, the Commission has not opened a single case of Treaty violation because of the lack of effective implementation of tax information exchange. Equally, we found a lack of access to tax-relevant information when it comes to assets and incomes from real estate companies and other types of assets. These asset classes should be included as soon as possible in the upcoming revision of Directive No 8. In her State of the Union address earlier today, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen committed to fighting tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax fraud. Therefore, I’m asking Commissioner Gentiloni: you have previously confirmed to us you may open infringement proceedings in the area of tax cooperation whenever needed. Considering the deficiencies identified in many Member States in my report, when will the Commission take action? And will you strengthen the Directive on Tax Administration as Parliament proposes in your eighth revision? Thank you very much to all of you who contributed and for listening to me.

Madam President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen. Europe's Green Deal is undoubtedly the largest climate protection programme ever presented by an EU Commission, yes, an entire continent. But especially after this climate crisis summer, we need more speed and ambition. The central problem with Europe's climate policy, however, is not a lack of announcements from Brussels, but the huge deficit of Member States' will to act. Looking at Germany, I see a huge gap between German ambition and European ambition in climate policy. The federal government wants to push the end of the internal combustion engine backwards. It has not even transposed the EU directive for more citizen energy in renewables. And with Nord Stream 2 it goes a wrong way to more fossil gas. Germany is slowing down Europe's ambitions in climate policy. Germany is holding back Europe from becoming a climate leader in the world. And that is why we now need a German federal government for European climate protection, which will become a German climate government.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! In fact, building up debt and deficits after two major crises worries many people. That's understandable. At the same time, a monetary union and the EU also need common fiscal rules. But when these fiscal rules that we have now are applied again, they stifle future investments that we just as desperately need. And secondly, they would lead to catastrophe for the highly indebted countries. That is why the current Maastricht rules, as they are now, must not remain. It is a sign of reason that here in the European Parliament we have now succeeded in forging a broad compromise. And I hope that all MEPs and the parties that are now supporting this compromise will also carry this debate into their Member States. Because common, sustainable fiscal policy is an important trademark of the EU and must not be misused at the expense of individual states for national party politics in some countries.

Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Today we are under the impression of a new, terrible attack: After Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ján Kuciak, it is today the investigative crime reporter Peter de Vries in the Netherlands who is struggling for his life. This attack is an attack on freedom of the press across Europe. And what must particularly worry us is the fact that the alleged perpetrators from the organised crime milieu had no inhibitions against shooting Peter de Vries in the open street in Amsterdam. This sense of security of organised and cross-border crime is due to the inadequate security policy within Europe. It is due to the insufficient cooperation of the authorities against money laundering and financial crime. Cross-border crime must finally be tackled cross-border. To do this, we need a European criminal office, one could also say a European FBI to protect citizens and the integrity of our internal market. The Commission should present a proposal for this in its work programme. We also need to better protect our common values. Violating European values has a system in more and more Member States. We see restrictions on the freedom of the press, the judiciary, the exclusion of minorities and governments with close ties to organised crime. But instead of decisively defending the European rule of law, instead of really showing teeth, the EU Commission and the Member States block and delay effective measures such as the Article 7 procedures, the rule of law mechanism and the consistent prosecution of all infringement procedures in the area of the rule of law. This must come to an end, and therefore the enforcement of European law, especially when it comes to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental values, is part of the European Commission's work programme. In 2022, we also need to shape Europe's post-pandemic future. And the strategy for this already exists: the European Green Deal. At the same time, we see how the world's forests are burning. Europe is also with this Green Deal Still not on the 1.5-degree path. Now it is therefore important, while there are heat records in Scandinavia, in fact all measures of the Green DealsInstead of having them diluted by lobbyists, implement them consistently and decide. Because now is the time to do so. I therefore expect the Commission to adopt a Green Deal in pure format in the interest of our economic competitiveness, our social rights and, above all, our responsibility for future generations. Be brave! Europe now has a chance to make history. Make something out of it!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. As we talk about our investment bank here, forests are burning in many places around the world. Our Investment Bank, the European Investment Bank, is acting against climate change and has significantly changed course. I am also personally grateful to you, Mr Hoyer, for what you have done in the phase-out of coal against the harsh resistance of many Member States, including our own. But at the same time, that's not enough. We now need to phase out non-renewables. We can no longer invest in so-called transitional technologies. There is no longer time for highways, for new gas infrastructures. Such a transition is ultimately a transition to hell. And that is why it is also wrong that the European Commission should now Sustainable finance-Strategy that she presents tomorrow, Commissioner, again makes references to gas, fossil gas. We need 100% renewables. We Greens are fighting for an investment bank that commits to 100% renewables.