Quote du Jour | Nederland, Italië en de belastingen

Sergio Fabbrini, hoogleraar politieke wetenschappen en internationale betrekkingen te Rome, thans gast aan de Kennedy School of Government van de Harvard University in de Verenigde Staten, reageert op de starre houding van Nederland inzake de financiële hulp aan zijn land.

Zijn grief is dat de EU/Eurozone wel een monetaire politiek voert die landen kan dwingen in te grijpen in de staatsfinanciën, maar dat, als het om belastingen gaat, de lidstaten blijven vasthouden aan hun absolute soevereiniteit, Nederland voorop.

The Netherlands lies in third position, after Bermuda and Cayman, in the global fiscal paradises ranking for multinational corporations. As a tax haven, Holland allows multinational corporations to escape fiscal obligations towards the country where they are located. Fiat Chrysler moved to Amsterdam, saving 20-30 millions of euro annually due to the Italian state—money which would have been useful for improving the latter’s health services. The Netherlands has opposed any attempt by the commission to harmonise national fiscal rules in the EU single market.

Fabbrini erkent dat Italië

should be blamed for continuing to have unjustifiably high public debt. Italy’s current governing majority has lacked even the basic courage to eliminate unnecessary spending, such as that incurred by the previous government in bringing forward a reform which anticipated the retirement age.

That notwithstanding, the crisis caused by the coronavirus has nothing to do with the condition of these states’ public finances. Even with lower public debt, Italy would not have the resources to manage the economic and healthcare consequences of a crisis which is of ‘potentially biblical proportions’, as the former European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi, put it.

Solidarity comes from the need to deal with a common challenge, not from a generic declaration of principles. Hence the need to use supranational and not intergovernmental financial instruments. As the nine governmental leaders said [van de zuidelijke landen inclusief Frankrijk, JvD] ‘we need to work on a common debt instrument issued by a European institution to raise funds on the market on the same basis and to the benefits of all Member States’.

Het is tijd voor een flinke stap naar een gezamenlijke aanpak van gezamenlijke problemen, vindt Fabbrini

After all, how can we go on with a single monetary policy and 19 national fiscal policies?(…) Supranational fiscal capacity does not take fiscal sovereignty away from the states but serves to respond with common resources to common problems. This is the supranational perspective for emerging out of crisis.