Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-04-18-Speech-3-418-000"
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"en.20120418.22.3-418-000"2
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"Mr President, budgetary consolidation is making almost unbearable demands of the European public. Every day, meanwhile, there are fewer to bear an increasing burden. The tax burden falls on workers, on small and medium-sized enterprises, and on consumers, while tax flight and tax evasion on a vast scale are taking place.
The Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament wanted to know how much money was being lost to the 27 Member States from this tax flight and tax evasion, and the answer was EUR 1 trillion. That is more than all the EU Member States put together spend on health care. It is so much that if we invested just one fifth of it, investment in Europe would increase from 2.7% of GDP to 3.5%. We are, therefore, talking about an exceptionally large sum and the purpose of the resolution we are going to adopt – at Parliament’s initiative – is a very clear demand that the Commission and the Council speed up concrete action to combat tax evasion and fraud.
This means, in particular, concrete initiatives for tax cooperation within the European Union, and for cooperation with our neighbouring countries – particularly Switzerland – negotiated by the Commission and not bilaterally by individual countries. This means reforming and harmonising accounting rules, and increasing transparency and reporting. This clearly means resurrecting the key issue of combating tax fraud and evasion through tax havens. Europe is not a minority partner. Europe is a major international player. Europe is obliged to advocate clearly the joint combating of tax fraud and evasion in the G20. If not, we will lose credibility with the public. Therefore, my final words in this debate are to encourage the Commission and the Council to start effectively combating tax fraud and evasion."@en1
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