Pierre Gramegna, Minister of Finance; Credit: European Council

Luxembourg has called for further negotiations on public country-by-country reporting (CBCR) within the EU Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) Council.

On Thursday 28 November 2019, Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna represented the Luxembourg Government at the Competitiveness Council (COMPET) in Brussels during the vote and discussion on public CBCR. 

In his speech, Minister Gramegna first stressed Luxembourg's support for European efforts towards a fairer, more transparent and growth-friendly tax system and recalled the country's firm commitment to fiscal transparency. He also presented the reasons why Luxembourg, along with twelve other member countries, could not support the Finnish Presidency's proposal on public CBCR.

As a reminder, public CBCR mainly aims to make data already exchanged between tax administrations publicly available. This had been discussed and approved unanimously at the ECOFIN Council. Referring to the opinion of the Council's Legal Service on the subject, Luxembourg's Minister of Finance thus emphasised that the purpose and content of public CBCR fell within the tax sphere and therefore the appropriate legal basis for the proposed amendment was Article 115 TFEU. As a result, he concluded that it should be dealt with in the working groups on tax issues and approved, where appropriate, unanimously by the ECOFIN Council.

Keen to ensure the competitiveness of the single European market, Pierre Gramegna also called for a more coordinated approach internationally in this area. He said that negotiations around public CBCR should be accompanied by more in-depth discussions at the OECD and G20 level, in order to develop a more inclusive global governance framework and ensure a level playing field.

As the public CBCR did not achieve the qualified majority in the vote in the COMPET Council, Pierre Gramegna suggested that the Commission put the issue on the agenda of the next ECOFIN Council, while underlining that Luxembourg is actively engaged in finding a compromise in future negotiations between EU Finance Ministers.