Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-26-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20070426.4.4-014"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I welcome your statement, because you have taken note of what we have been saying for some time now, namely that the practice that is being developed in certain Swiss cantons – without mentioning the main ones of Zug, Vaud and Schwyz – constitutes a violation of the 1972 agreement on forms of State aid that contradict the rules of fair competition and that affect the nature of trade between the European Union and Switzerland. The fact is that Switzerland, as a friend of the European Union, benefits from the same conditions of access to the EU internal market as any Member State. You cannot have your cake and eat it, meaning, in this case, that you cannot have both the internal market and exceptions for certain Swiss cantons.
It is not a question here of referring to this or that media figure among natural persons, but indeed of referring to substantial sums that are at stake due to the practices being developed by certain legal persons. Therefore, once a problem has been identified between friends, it should be dealt with. This is what you are proposing to do. You will have my group’s full support in this matter, and I am delighted that other groups in this House share this approach.
As far as Switzerland is concerned, we are told that Swiss internal affairs are being interfered with. However, in an international trade environment, freedom is not unilateral. Account must be taken of others’ circumstances, and the freedom of one party stops where that of the other begins. I believe that, when it comes to our excellent relations with Switzerland – and President Barroso reiterated this when he was in Bern the other day – this is how we must act.
At times, Switzerland has been able to divide and rule among Europeans, and everyone will recall the circumstances in which, after the Feira conclusions had come out and we wanted to adopt the Directive on the taxation of savings within the Union, some people used Switzerland to divide us. I am delighted that the conditions for negotiating the mandate granted to the Commission will clearly enable the Member States to speak with one voice, while showing respect for Swiss sovereignty. That is a very good sign, in my view.
To conclude, I should like simply to make an obvious point: when one considers the logic of the Swiss taxation system, the idea that a taxation system should take account of external costs is absolutely integral to the Swiss thinking on taxation. To put it plainly, certain Swiss practices confirm the fact that, from the moment that production does not take place on Swiss soil, the cost of infrastructure or of employing qualified workers does not have to be incorporated in the taxation system. We must – at the very least in terms of trade with the European Union – highlight the following situation: as the taxation system developed in certain Swiss cantons currently stands in relation to that of the EU Member States, we are losing revenue, since these production activities are being developed on our territory and the tax on the capital gains generated in this way is being channelled into Switzerland to avoid the need to provide any funding for these external costs. I wish you luck in the negotiations."@en1
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