{"id":25222,"date":"2014-06-23T17:53:04","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T16:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=25222"},"modified":"2014-06-23T17:53:04","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T16:53:04","slug":"message-to-jean-claude-junker-will-you-publicly-back-eu-efforts-to-make-business-fairer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2014\/06\/23\/message-to-jean-claude-junker-will-you-publicly-back-eu-efforts-to-make-business-fairer\/","title":{"rendered":"Message to Jean-Claude Junker: will you publicly back EU efforts to make business fairer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was written jointly by Gavin Hayman of Global Witness and me and first appeared on the Global Witness blog today<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Plenty of column inches<\/a>\u00a0have been given over to debating whether or not former Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Junker will become president of the European Commission in recent weeks. Politically speaking, potatoes don\u2019t come much hotter, but we\u2019re not really interested in that, and as not-for-profit organisations, we are completely non-partisan anyway.<\/p>\n

Assuming that he does get in, it is going to be really interesting to see how he will support the major strides that Europe has made promoting transparency and accountability in business.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been significant progress on this in recent years, much of which has been driven directly by public sentiment. Take efforts to\u00a0investigate the tax affairs of Apple and Starbucks in the EU<\/a>. People are fed up with big business using financial chicanery to hide how they siphon off huge profits whilst putting very little back into the societies they took them from.<\/p>\n

We will be looking to Mr. Junker to show leadership on this vital issue in his new role. And, in the interests of full transparency, we do have concerns as, let\u2019s be honest, he has \u2018form\u2019 here. Whilst Prime Minister of Luxembourg, he bent over backwards to strip away\u00a0regulation in Luxembourg, foster corporate secrecy and whittle away tax demands on big business,<\/a>\u00a0mostly at the expense of his European neighbours.\u00a0 Rumour has it bankers were terrified that his election loss in 2013 would spell disaster, with one telling the FT \u201cA few of us had to take a double scotch to digest the news (\u2026) would the new government start taxing the sector?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not surprising. It was tax haven Luxembourg when under Mr. Junker\u2019s premiership that\u00a0stood out time again against European cooperation to beat tax cheats<\/a>. It has only been\u00a0since his departure\u00a0<\/a>that progress has been made on this vital issue to ensure that tax cheats from across Europe are brought to account.<\/p>\n

If, like us, you think banks and other businesses should be paying taxes, this is fairly alarming.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just on tax that we see the EU moving on companies that take out without giving back. We\u2019ve both spent over a decade pushing for laws<\/a>\u00a0which would make oil, gas and mining companies publish their payments to foreign governments for their natural resources. For Global Witness, over 20 years of investigations and campaigning have taught us that when these payments are made in secret, the money almost always ends up in private bank accounts of powerful people rather than state coffers.<\/p>\n

Lately, we\u2019ve seen the EU pass precisely those laws needed to tackle this issue \u2014 it was such a no-brainer that 96% of MEPs voted in favour, which is about as close to a complete consensus as you are likely to see. This will go a long way to stopping deals like the one Global Witness exposed recently, where payments of over\u00a0$1billion from Shell and Eni<\/a>\u00a0to the Nigerian government then went to a front company controlled by the former Nigerian oil minister.\u00a0The Nigerian people saw none of that cash, which they badly need for schools and hospitals. As European citizens, we\u2019d like to see Mr Junker support this emerging concensus about transparency in the extractives sector and provide reassurance that these measures will remain on track.<\/p>\n

We are also keen to see where Mr. Junker stands\u00a0on the whole future of\u00a0country-by-country reporting for all European companies<\/a>\u00a0that has been regularly backed by the EU parliament and which would let us know which company does what, where, so letting us hold them to account across Europe and around the world.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve also seen real progress in our\u00a0efforts to stop warlords, corrupt politicians and other criminals hiding what they\u2019re doing behind sham companies<\/a>. The EU parliament has committed to creating a public register of the real owners of companies, meaning they can be used fairly and openly, but to see this through will require that rarest of commodities, which is political will. We hope and expect that Mr. Junker will now step up and support this, especially, as in his past role he defended the\u00a0status quo\u00a0<\/em>aimed at maintaining the secrecy that this measure is designed to end.<\/p>\n

So what will happen to all these progressive measures\u00a0under Mr Junker?\u00a0Running the Commission is different, of course, to running Luxembourg but we think lots of people would welcome some clear, public reassurance that his policy-making will protect the interests of the 99%, not just the 1% who profited so handsomely from his stewardship in Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

Tax and financial transparency are two of the key issues of our time, and the EU is leading on both. So, Mr Junker, we call upon you to go on the record and denounce corporate secrecy and tax evasion. We hope you will: we and other European citizens need to know about whose interests Europe looks like being governed in.<\/p>\n

Follow the authors on twitter: Gavin Hayman (@GavinHayman_GW<\/a>), Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was written jointly by Gavin Hayman of Global Witness and me and first appeared on the Global Witness blog today: Plenty of column
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