European Union

Statement by David McAllister, Chair of the European Parliament’s UK Coordination Group, on the publication of a draft legal agreement on the future EU-UK partnership.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Statement by David McAllister, Chair of the European Parliament’s UK Coordination Group, on the publication of a draft legal agreement on the future EU-UK partnership.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Welcome to EURACTIV’s Global Europe Brief, your weekly update on the EU in the global perspective from our foreign affairs news team: Georgi Gotev and Alexandra Brzozowski. You can subscribe here. /// ‘WHATEVER IT TAKES’ It’s official: Europe’s coronavirus deaths have exceeded Asia’s toll...

Europe has a choice between getting a good taxation directive this year or waiting years for something not yet defined that may never win agreement. For the sake of climate progress, it should take its chances with what it has now, writes Jim Power.

Welcome to EURACTIV’s AgriFood Brief, your weekly update on all things Agriculture & Food in the EU. You can subscribe here if you haven’t done so yet. The launch of the new EU food policy, the Farm 2 Fork strategy,...

Welcome to EURACTIV’s Digital Brief, your weekly update on all things digital in the EU. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.    “Europe and the whole world are facing an unprecedented situation.” – EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, 18 March...

Written by Marcin Szczepański,

© Alfa Photo / Shutterstock.com

The digitalisation of the economy and society poses new tax policy challenges. One of the main questions is how to correctly capture value and tax businesses characterised by a reliance on intangible assets, no or insignificant physical presence in the tax jurisdictions where commercial activities are carried out (scale without mass), and a considerable user role in value creation. Current tax rules are struggling to cope with the emerging realities of these new economic models.

The European Union (EU) and other international bodies have been discussing these issues for some time. In March 2018, the EU introduced a ‘fair taxation of the digital economy’ package. It contained proposals for an interim and long-term digital tax. The European Parliament supported both proposals, widening their scope and coverage and backing integration of digital tax into the proposed Council framework on corporate taxation. However, there was no immediate political agreement in the Council. As finding a global solution at Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) level or a coordinated EU approach was not yet feasible, some Member States started implementing or designing national digital taxes. As an indication of difficulties around this issue, the introduction of these taxes in France heightened trade tensions between the EU and the United States of America, with the latter favouring a ‘voluntary’ tax system – a position which may prevent a global agreement.

Over the last few years, the OECD has nevertheless made progress on developing a global solution and proposed a two-pillar system: while the first pillar (unified approach) would grant new taxation rights and review the current profit allocation and business location-taxation rules, the second (GloBE) aims to mitigate risks stemming from the practices of profit-shifting to jurisdictions where they can be subjected to no, or very low, taxation. The EU is committed to supporting the OECD’s work, but if no solution is found by the end of 2020, it will again make a proposal for its own digital tax.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Digital taxation: State of play and way forward‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

The launch of the new EU food policy, the Farm 2 Fork strategy (F2F), will be delayed at least by another month in light of a rescheduling of the Commission's work programme due to coronavirus outbreak.

Phishing emails, trojans and spam are now spreading over the Internet. Experts estimate that more than three percent of coronavirus websites that have been created since the beginning of the year contain malicious content.

The Greek government is seriously considering temporarily banning all foreign flights as of 22 March to halt the spread of the coronavirus, Greek media reported on Thursday (19 March).

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has the coronavirus, he announced on Thursday (19 March).

Hungary will deploy special military task forces to monitor the operations and safety of 140 companies providing critical services during the coronavirus pandemic, defence minister Tibor Benko said on Wednesday. He did not names companies, but said more could fall under the new measures, Reuters reported. Energy group MOL is one of them, the company confirmed. The task forces will brief the defence ministry regularly on the companies.

Many countries have declared a state of emergency and imposed curfews in a bid to combat the spread of the corona pandemic. In Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and Denmark, for example, citizens are only allowed to leave their homes for urgent reasons. Some scientists doubt the efficacy of such drastic measures, and a number of commentators agree.

Just because people all over the world are now spending a great deal of time at home as a result of the corona crisis this doesn't mean that every family is growing closer together: reports from China point to an increase in physical and sexual domestic violence, while in Europe hotlines are already reporting a spike in calls. But even beyond violence, the lockdown will hit some children harder than others.