Preliminary agreement on InvestEU
A preliminary agreement on InvestEU was proposed on 20 of March, the programme aims to boost private and public investment in Europe in the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027. InvestEU builds on the success of the Juncker Plan, or Investment Plan for Europe. Similar to the Juncker Plan, InvestEU is an EU budget guarantee. The guarantee will be at least €38 billion, set to mobilise at least €650 billion. The InvestEU Fund will be accompanied by the InvestEU Advisory Hub – tailored support to project promoters – and the InvestEU Portal – an easily accessible pipeline of mature projects for potential investors.
InvestEU is a partnership with the European Investment Bank Group (EIB), the EU Bank, and will be open to other implementing partners as well. This preliminary agreement is still subject to formal approval by European Parliament and Council. The budgetary aspects of InvestEU are subject to the overall agreement on the next long-term EU budget, which the Commission proposed in May 2018.
New agreement on sustainable investment disclosure rules
The agreed rules will strengthen and improve the disclosure of information by manufacturers of financial products and financial advisors towards end-investors. First proposed by the Commission in May 2018 as part of the Sustainable Finance Action Plan and the Capital Markets Union, these rules are an integral part of the EU efforts, under the EU’s sustainable development agenda and the carbon neutrality agenda, to connect finance with needs of the real economy. They also support the 2012 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement targets.
The new regulation sets out how financial market participants and financial advisors must integrate environmental, social or governance (ESG) risks and opportunities in their processes, as part of their duty to act in the best interest of clients. It also sets uniform rules on how those financial market participants should inform investors about their compliance with the integration of ESG risks and opportunities.
Provisional agreement to provide funding for the EU’s tax cooperation programme (‘Fiscalis’) during the next EU budget period of 2021-2027
The agreement reached on 21 of March paves the way for Fiscalis to continue its key contribution in supporting and ensuring close tax collaboration between Member States. In turn, it helps to establish fairer and more efficient tax systems and lower administrative burdens for citizens and businesses in the EU’s Single Market.According to figures provided by the Commission, there are around 24 million companies in the EU, out of which approximately 80% are limited liability companies. Around 98-99% of limited liability companies are small and medium-sized enterprises, which would be most directly impacted by these improvements.
The programme will support cooperation between Member States’ tax administrations and better contribute to the fight against tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance, by:
- Putting in place better and more connected IT systems, which each Member State would otherwise have to develop individually. This includes developing and maintaining interoperable and cost-effective IT solutions to support tax authorities in implementing EU legislation;
- Sharing good practices and training to boost efficiency: this includes helping prevent unnecessary administrative burdens for citizens and businesses (including SMEs) in cross-border transactions and significantly adding to the 423,000 tax professionals trained since 2014;
- Continued and enhanced support for deep cooperation between tax authorities, in particular joint actions in risk management and audits – 1,000 of which have been organised between Member States since 2014;
- Fostering Union competitiveness and fair competition, boosting innovation and facilitating the implementation of new economic models.
Procedure for updating the tax vector – Order no. 169/2019 of January 30, 2019
The Order of the President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration no. 169/2019 of January 30, 2019 regarding the procedure of updating the tax vector, for the taxable persons registered for value added tax purposes using the calendar quarter as tax period and performing an intra-Community acquisition of taxable goods in Romania as well as the model and the content of some forms was published in the Official Gazette no. 154 of 27 February 2019.