Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-05-Speech-2-257"
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"en.20020205.11.2-257"2
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". – May I begin by saying that it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be able to discuss with Parliament today a proposal for a regulation to strengthen administrative cooperation between Member States in order to enhance VAT control.
In particular, as regards the issue of electronic communication, I would like to stress that much of the information covered by this regulation is not available in electronic format, and therefore, in practice, cannot be exchanged by electronic means.
As regards the translations, I share the argument according to which Member States should strive as far as possible to waive a translation. But the Commission takes the view that the arrangements under which Member States should waive translations should be determined in an implementing regulation, binding for all Member States, and not individually by each Member State.
Finally, as concerns data protection, the Commission takes the view that if Directive 95/46/EC is fully applied, fraudsters would be informed that they are under suspicion, and consequently it is to be expected that they would transfer their fraudulent activity and would dispose of the evidence of fraud. That would seriously hamper the fight against VAT fraud.
I am personally confident that an agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission will be achieved on these issues. The Council has already started to discuss the proposal in detail. It will do its best to achieve an agreement as soon as possible, and we are making good headway. But your support of the proposal is important to achieve that much desired result. I would therefore recommend this proposal most warmly for Parliament's approval. I thank Parliament for its most constructive intervention.
I thank Mrs Kauppi very much for her report. It is extremely constructive. I can only echo what was said by Mr Karas who referred to Mrs Kauppi as his "young and effective colleague". She is not my colleague but I should like to echo the appreciative words of Mr Karas.
Mrs Kauppi, along with other Members of Parliament, spoke about the legal basis of this proposal. It is about administrative cooperation. It is not about changing the VAT regime. I wish the Commission could do that. We have wanted to do so for many years but we are not able to do so. But no, it is about administrative cooperation. It is not designed to change in any way the obligations of taxpayers or the rules governing the application of that legislation, but rather to gear administrative cooperation to the challenges of the internal market. That is why the Commission is submitting this proposal under Article 95 of the Treaty. In taking that article as the legal basis the Commission is consistent with its proposal for Regulation No 218/92 as well as with its proposal to modify the recovery directive. The Commission is correct in choosing Article 95 as the basis of this proposal. As Mr García-Margallo y Marfil said quite clearly, it gives Parliament codecision and that is what many Members of this Parliament want. I take this opportunity to thank Mr García-Margallo y Marfil for the kind words he uttered in my direction. I add to that that the Commission is extremely pleased that we have settled the matter of the so-called Lamfalussy proposal and that we can now continue with the work ahead.
More to the point, the Commission is of the opinion that this proposal is an important element of the new VAT strategy to improve the operation of the VAT system within the context of the internal market. It also constitutes a response to the Council calling on the Commission to present proposals for fighting VAT fraud.
The intra-Community market is today seriously affected by organised VAT fraud, where professional fraudsters abuse the exemption mechanism of the VAT system. Tackling that kind of fraud requires rapid and efficient cooperation between the tax administrations of the different Member States. But at present the legal framework is too weak to support really effective cooperation, essentially because it is vague, over-centralised and the exchange of information is not sufficiently intensive. In addition, cooperation is complicated owing to the existence of two legal instruments in this area with different scopes and different rules.
This proposal sets up one single legal framework merging, for VAT purposes, the regulation and the directive, and modifies the current arrangements in three ways: firstly, the proposal lays down clear and binding rules governing administrative cooperation between Member States, for example, for the presence of foreign officials during controls, or for organising multilateral controls; secondly, the proposal devolves cooperation and provides for more direct contacts between tax inspectors of different Member States. This is also a point which Mrs Kauppi drew to our attention. She said that when French and Spanish controllers – for example – in a border area want to communicate, at the moment this communication has to pass via Madrid and Paris. It is obvious that direct communication between inspection staff will make cooperation faster and more effective. Thirdly, the proposal aims to intensify the exchange of information between tax administrations in order to combat fraud more effectively.
I am very pleased that this proposal gets the support of all speakers this evening, except for Mrs Doyle, whom I can no longer convince, since she is no longer here. The Commission is extremely pleased with this support. I would therefore like to particularly welcome the positive contribution of the rapporteur, Mrs. Kauppi.
But given the fact that examination of this proposal is ongoing in the Council, and given the Commission’s strong desire to address this issue in a timely manner, I believe that the most appropriate course of action at this time is for the Commission not to formally accept the amendments put forward by Parliament, but to endeavour to take them on board, as much as possible, during the negotiations in the Council.
However I fear it will not be possible to take some of these amendments fully into account."@en1
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