Europe's biggest countries gained ground Saturday in their bid to recover some of the one trillion euros lost each year to tax fraud and money laundering, despite hold-out Austria railing against government "snooping" into bank accounts.
After a first day of talks among finance ministers focused on eurozone bailout issues, European Union Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said he expected a breakthrough on the automatic sharing of customer bank data across borders "within weeks."
Cash-strapped governments want to claw back much-needed revenues at a time of recession and high unemployment, with the issue to top a May 22 summit of EU leaders. Semeta said the first fruits should be agreement on a legal update covering savings taxation that has been stalled since 2008, plus a mandate to negotiate with Switzerland and other third parties on the exchange of bank account information. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble echoed those remarks after the talks ended, stressing his belief that "all member states will participate in the automatic exchange of information" before too long.
Schaeuble had appeared late Friday alongside his counterparts from Britain, France, Italy, Poland and Spain, each arguing that citizens demand "fairness" when it comes to tax, especially in tough times. The EU has been tightening up on tax evasion and money laundering since the 2008 global financial crisis highlighted the problem alongside the reckless speculative fever that drove banks and countries into a ditch. Luxembourg had held out with Austria, repeatedly blocking legislative changes, but last week it indicated a readiness to lift some barriers in 2015.
Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter insisted in Dublin that individual privacy is paramount, although her chancellor, a political rival ahead of September polls, took a softer stance earlier in the week to suggest there was at least some room for negotiation.
Changing tax law across the EU requires all member states to give their approval, without exception. Fekter said the drive was simply governments "snooping," arguing that the automatic exchange of information with EU peers was "not necessary" because of a withholding tax Austria implements and which is subject to tax treaty controls with dozens of countries including the EU's biggest. Vienna passes taxes taken at source on to foreign governments - although anonymously - which Fekter argued, delivers "more money, and faster." She vowed: "We will fight (to retain) banking secrecy. I owe that to the Austrians."
Backers of the plan, wanting to match the United States, said they aim to push the cause next week at meetings of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Group of 20 major economies. "This fight, this is not only national, a European fight - but a fight at the global level," French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said late Friday.