Economic and Financial Affairs Council of Tuesday 23rd of May

Agenda highlights

Taxation dispute resolution mechanisms in the EU

The Council is expected to reach an agreement on the proposal for the Council directive on taxation dispute resolution mechanisms in the EU.

The proposal aims to make the EU’s existing dispute resolution mechanisms more effective and efficient by introducing a number of clarifications and timelines and strengthening the enforceability of decisions, and by making the system more accessible to the taxpayers (i.e. companies) as well as more transparent.

Common corporate tax base

The Council will be briefed on the progress achieved in the technical examination of the proposal for a Council directive to introduce a common corporate tax base in the EU.

Ministers will be asked to provide guidance for future work on the proposal.

The aim of the proposal is to establish a single set of rules for taxing corporate profits in the EU. This would reduce administrative costs and increase legal certainty for businesses, and would make the calculation of their taxable profits uniform in all EU countries.

European Semester 2017

The Council will adopt conclusions on the results of the in-depth-reviews of macroeconomic imbalances. The conclusions will also review the implementation of the country-specific recommendations from 2016.

This year the in-depth reviews were carried out in 13 EU countries. Such reviews are necessary to determine whether the macroeconomic imbalances exist and if so, what their nature is.

The main findings of 2017 reviews:

• Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy and Portugal are experiencing excessive economic imbalances
• Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden are experiencing economic imbalances that are not considered excessive
• Finland is not experiencing economic imbalances

In 12 member states, where macroeconomic imbalances have been identified, a specific monitoring will be carried out.

The in-depth-reviews are part of the macroeconomic imbalances procedure which is carried out annually under the European Semester process – policy coordination mechanism among the EU countries.

Greece is not included in the reviews, because it is currently implementing a macroeconomic adjustment programme, which is monitored under a different arrangement.

Movement of capital

The Council will exchange views on two reports related to the movement of capital in the EU:

• a 2016 report by the Economic and Financial Committee on the movement of capital and the freedom of payments
• a report by the European Commission on addressing national barriers to capital flows to facilitate the establishment of the Capitals Markets Union

The European Commission’s report follows up on both the capital markets union initiative and hence the EU’s investment plan for Europe initiative. It maps out national barriers to cross-border capital flows, identified together with experts from the member states, and proposes action to address them.

International meetings

The Council will be briefed on the outcomes of the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors which took place on 20-21 April 2017, and of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which took place on 21-23 April 2017, in Washington, D.C.