Petr Ježek

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker appeared on Thursday before the European Parliament’s TAXE committee, along with Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici.

Mr Juncker faced some difficult questions from the MEPs who asked about his role his role in Luxembourg’s controversial tax practices adopted during his time as the country’s finance and prime minister.

The EC president denied any implications in the rulings in question and insisted that he has always been opposed to any political interference in the tax administration decisions. Mr Juncker also suggested MEPs should stop referring to the tax scandal as Luxleaks as the issue involved other EU member states as well, and should rather be called “EUleaks”, according to the president.

Members of the TAXE committee also complained about a lack of cooperation by the European Commission in granting the MEPs access to important documents they need for their work. In his response, Commissioner Moscovici told the committee the EC was currently working on a solution of this problem that would get support from the member states.

“I don’t think Mr Juncker was particularly convincing in the debate,” Petr Ježek said. “However, I’m glad that both the president of the Commission and Commissioner Moscovici emphasized the significance of the draft directive on automatic exchange of tax rulings, which I follow as ALDE’s shadow rapporteur,” the Czech MEP added.

The TAXE committee, in a joint session with the ECON committee, held later on Thursday an exchange of views with Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Verstager. The discussion focued on the issue of unfair tax benefits granted by many member states to multinational corporations, leaving small and mid-sized business at a considerable disadvantage. Ms Verstager said that monitoring of tax practices in respect to the competition policy was indeed a priority for her and her office.

News archive