{"id":1364,"date":"2020-12-07T16:20:39","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T16:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=134614"},"modified":"2020-12-07T16:20:39","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T16:20:39","slug":"behind-closed-doors-secret-deals-in-the-council-of-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/07\/behind-closed-doors-secret-deals-in-the-council-of-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind closed doors: secret deals in the Council of the EU"},"content":{"rendered":"
There is no time frame on which the Council is obliged to make a decision on proposed legislation, and presidencies only put proposals to a vote when they can expect a sufficient qualified majority: 65% of the represented population and<\/em> 15 Member States. At the same time, a vote on the behalf of 35% of the population or<\/em> 13 governments is sufficient to block new laws.<\/p>\n Because of this lack of transparency, citizens, journalists and lobbyists don\u2019t know which governments are blocking an issue and so can\u2018t influence it. There is hardly any pressure on the governments that make up the blocking minority.<\/p>\n At the same time, big lobby groups have the capacity to gather information about what happens in the Council beyond what is available in public documents. And for big lobby groups that want to stop or water-down proposals they don\u2019t like, the blocking minority is the perfect instrument, sources tell IE.<\/p>\n \u201cThe secrecy in the council means that there is little or no pressure on individual EU governments, which allow them to put off difficult decisions,\u201d says Emily O\u2019Reilly, giving the recent example of a French environmental NGO which was denied access to member states\u2019 positions on an issue regarding pesticides and bees.<\/p>\n Of the 30 proposals currently \u2018stuck\u2019, here are a few that IE believes merit further examination.<\/p>\n International companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple register their profits in countries such as Ireland, where tax rates are particularly low. They do this despite most of their turnover coming from elsewhere. Although perfectly legal, the EU Commission says such aggressive tax planning costs EU countries up to \u20ac70bn a year in lost tax revenue.<\/p>\n For four years, EU governments have been negotiating a draft directive \u2014 public Country-by-Country Reporting (pPCbCR)<\/a> \u2014 to make this tax avoidance more visible by distinguishing which activities relate to a specific country.<\/p>\n After making swift progress (adoption of the proposal by the European Commission in 2016, and approval by the European Parliament in 2017), it arrived in the Council, where it was blocked by several states and its progress has ground to a halt.<\/p>\n It has been reported that Germany was the leader of the blocking minority, because the German Minister of Economics sided with the transnational companies arguing that they would lose competitiveness due to the forced publication of alleged business secrets. But for years, the other blocking member states were unknown.<\/p>\n That only changed in October 2019, when German Green MEP Sven Giegold managed to get hold of information that had, until then (and in-line with Council practices) been a well-kept secret: the countries that were blocking the law.<\/p>\n Some of the names came as no surprise: Ireland, Luxembourg, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Malta and Cyprus have rules that attract multinational companies looking to shrink their tax bill. What was a surprise was the appearance of Sweden and Portugal, two countries with Social Democratic governments that had publicly promised to fight tax avoidance.<\/p>\nCountry by country reporting<\/strong><\/h2>\n