Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-13-Speech-2-031-000"
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"en.20120313.6.2-031-000"2
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"Mr President, Mr Barroso, you have rightly spoken about tax evasion. You know that this struggle is extremely important for us, because it is a struggle that revolves around economic efficiency and social justice. Talking about these matters is all very well, but we would like to see action.
Where are the Commission’s statements? Where is the pressure from the Commission to help Greece to try to recover the EUR 100 to 200 billion that are in Switzerland, according to the Greek Government’s estimates? I know that this is not necessarily Greece’s priority. Greece holds the primary responsibility for this inability to genuinely levy tax. All the same, where is the action by the Commission to exert pressure on Switzerland, so that the money can be taxed and then return to Greece?
Just now, Daniel Cohn-Bendit was talking about what President Obama did in relation to the Swiss banks and banking secrecy. Where is the initiative by the European Commission to do exactly what Mr Obama did, namely, to impose an extra-territorial law that is binding and eliminates banking secrecy? Where is the Commission’s initiative to have a European list of tax havens? On the OECD’s blacklist, there is one state, or two states, or, from time to time, three states; they sign mutual conventions, and then there is no one left on the list. All of a sudden, the struggle is empty, because the blacklist is empty. Where is the Commission’s initiative? I want to see concrete answers, because it is all very well to make these grand declarations before Parliament, but it is actually much better to take tangible political action to put pressure on these states. I am fully aware that these states constitute the main obstacle to progress. We need you, however, to put pressure on the states.
Mr Barroso, I would like to put a final question to you, not about tax havens, but about austerity. When we have informal discussions with your departments and those of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, this is what your officials tell us. When you put all the austerity policies and the requirements that have now been imposed by the Commission to reduce budget deficits into the same economic model, it is not possible to show that there is truly a path that will enable us to reduce the deficits. In fact, growth is being damaged to such a degree, and tax revenue is being decreased to such an extent, that the end result is a greater deficit, not a lower one. That is the case, for example, in Spain. The debate is also a live issue in the Netherlands, and perhaps soon will be in France too.
Mr Barroso, the reality is that when you use these figures, it does not work. When are you going to admit this? When are you going to change direction?"@en1
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