Groei

The forthcoming Presidency of the Council of the EU (Germany), aims to further discuss and analyze the policy objective 1 under the Common Provisions Regulation for cohesion policy that refers to '' a smarter Europe by promoting innovative and smart economic transformation''. In this context, the Presidency has asked the EESC to provide an opinion on how the structural measures and cohesion policy programmes can help in this process. The Presidency plans to present the key findings of this discussion in a High-level conference that will take place on 29^th of September where also the opinion of EESC will be discussed. 

The EESC proposes launching a European pact to effectively combat tax fraud, evasion and avoidance and money laundering. The Committee calls on the European Commission to promote a political initiative involving national governments and the other European institutions in achieving this goal, fostering the consensus needed for this and involving civil society. Cooperation between Member States should be the main pillar of the pact. The Committee urges the European institutions and the Member States to provide the financial and human resources required for the effective implementation of existing European legislation and to agree on a commitment to adopt all necessary new legislative and administrative measures to effectively combat tax offences and bad practices, money laundering and the activities of tax havens. This requires permanent evaluation of the outcome of implementing each measure.