European Economic and Social Committee
The EESC supports the Commission's ambition for the European Union to lead the way in the global fight against money laundering and terrorism, in which all stakeholders should join forces. To feed into the political debate and decision making process and to make sure the needs of civil society are duly taken account of, the EESC is organising a public hearing on "The fight against money laundering, terrorist financing and tax evasion".
In their consultative work, the European Economic and Social Committee and the European Committee of the Regions have long been committed to sustainable development and fighting climate change. However, are we actually putting our recommendations into practice inside our own offices?
To ensure that the Committees act as environmentally as possible, since 2008 we have been engaged in setting up an EMAS-compliant environmental management system.
This brochure presents the EESC's opinions in the area of taxation and gives an overview of key recommendations. We believe that great efforts are needed to prevent aggressive tax planning behaviour by businesses and non-transparency by Member States to ensure equal treatment of firms and to promote European competitiveness for the benefit of all Europeans.
The recent economic and political developments in Europe are a wake-up call for our leaders to take swifter action in order to strengthen the foundations of our Union, including the fragile political and institutional architecture underpinning the euro, thus ensuring lasting stability and prosperity for the people of Europe.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for governance improvements in the internal market with a view to removing bureaucratic hurdles for business. Its conclusion is that the European Commission, although active in cutting red tape in EU legislation, is not intervening yet in the case of gold-plating, which is over-compliance at the national/regional/local level. A key problem with gold-plating is precisely its tendency to overlap across multiple layers of competence. Gold-plating does happen and in certain cases undermines European competitiveness.
