9 Dec

At the ECOFIN meeting the Council reached agreement on a proposal to amend the directive as regards rates of value added tax (VAT). The new rules ensure member states are treated equally and give them more flexibility to apply reduced and zero VAT rates. While Hungary fully supports the agreement on the new VAT rules, we could not go along with the new mandate of the Code of Conduct group as this could open a backdoor to undesirable tax harmonization. We think it is crucial to preserve the peer review feature of the group, where only the Member States could legitimately exercise political power and the Commission should act only as a facilitator of the discussions among Member States.

At the meeting, the Commission presented the Capital Markets Union Package that aims to better connect EU companies with investors and improve their access to funding, as well as broaden investment opportunities for retail investors and better integrate capital markets. Hungary welcomes the proposal and looks forward to the technical discussions.