The Fiscal Matters coalition is reaching out ahead of the Commissioners-designate hearings to ask MEPs to raise specific questions and push for commitments on EU own resources and taxation initiatives. The following Vice-President and Commissioner designates will have responsibilities covering directly and indirectly tax issues: Teresa Ribera Rodríguez (Clean, Just and Competitive Transition with an overview on tax initiatives), Wopke Hoekstra (Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth with tax under his remit), Valdis Dombrovskis (Economy and Productivity; Implementation and Simplification), Piotr Serafin (Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration) and Glenn Micallef (Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport).
The European Union faces a significant investment crisis. In his landmark report on competitiveness, Mario Draghi called for significantly more public and private investment, urging the EU to invest an additional €800 billion per year to address declining productivity and competitiveness. He stressed that the EU must match post-World War II investment levels, warning that Europe risks compromising its welfare, environment and global standard without this unprecedented boost in public and private spending.
Much of these investments are required to meet agreed green and social objectives. The EU requires roughly €236 billion in additional public investments a year to meet EU climate goals and €192 billion in additional public investments a year to meet social objectives. Despite these critical needs, the EU’s current fiscal rules allow only three member states to meet both their social and green investment requirements.
The risk is that EU countries fail to meet their global commitments and may resort to austerity policies, which affect the most vulnerable and young people the most.
