Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-12-Speech-3-289"
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"en.20011212.10.3-289"2
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"Mr President, I am speaking this evening as much in my capacity as draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Petitions as in my capacity as a Finn with Swedish as my mother tongue and a representative of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
I am grateful that the rapporteur referred to the opinion of the Committee on Petitions and the fact that we have taken the problems of citizens seriously. I would like to point to the statistics published in the opinion, from which it may be noted that over 500 petitions in the past decade related to this issue, almost 100 during this term of office, and that 14 of these relate to the situation between Finland and Sweden.
The large proportion of petitions on precisely this issue of the situation between Finland and Sweden is a natural expression of the fact that a free labour market has existed among the Nordic countries since the 1950s and that the Finns who moved to Sweden at that time are now considering moving back. According to one set of figures, several thousand of these people are living in the town of Haparanda, on the border with Finland, as they cannot afford to return to Finland. This situation shows the problems we shall face.
The problem is so topical that it was highlighted by Professor Edward Andersson in a message in one of a collection of papers in honour of the sixtieth birthday of the Finnish Judge of the Court of Justice of the EC, Leif Sevón, as well as in the communication from the Commission.
One of the problems on which still further light could be shed is that we in Europe apply such different variants of double taxation agreements within the framework of the OECD. The different variants of agreements in this area are a problem which I believe should also be covered by the open method of coordination.
It is fascinating that this issue has been taken up by the Commission. I congratulate you. When a similar enquiry was conducted in the Nordic countries, former Minister for Nordic Cooperation Ole Norrback stated that the authorities did not believe that there was a problem in this area, although citizens thought that there was. He also found that he had learned more during the enquiry than he had in his eight years as a minister.
I therefore hope that quite a few of the measures proposed by the rapporteur will be implemented, for example access to better information on the rules which actually apply. I offer my wholehearted support for any courageous action on the part of the Commission, i.e. also taking cases to court when interpretation is at issue, in order to establish correct interpretations with regard both to taxation and to other similar charges with which we have problems.
I also believe two of the problems to be the crediting of tax allowances and the level of tax deducted at source. It is particularly important that we work together to ensure that citizens have good access to information in this area."@en1
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