My Dutch colleagues have given me feedback on the reception of the report we co-authored for SOMO to which I referred yesterday.

The report, entitled 'The Netherlands: A tax haven?' has been discussed in the Dutch parliament. As Francis Weyzig noted:

The finance minister questioned our report, which was to be expected, but he also stated that the group interest box should not be detrimental to countries that receive development aid, and if it would turn out that this is the case, he would certainly do something about it..

And as welcome:

Apart from our report, the problem of a race to the bottom was also mention several times in the discussion.

The report has, therefore, already established a benchmark for which the Dutch government can be held accountable. Which is good news.