Two prominent members of the European Parliament Sophie in’t Veld and Sylvia Goulard have recently raised concerns to the EU Commission over the FATCA five agreement the US signed with five EU nations. Link below to their written request to the EU Commission.
http://www.d66.nl/intveld/document/wpq_fatca/f=/vixnlqmqvwm5.pdf
Key points:
The US has been negotiating with the FATCA five countries since April of 2011.
Both in’t Veld and Goulard state any FATCA “agreement” must be negotiated by the EU Commission as a whole on behalf of all 27 members states.
Any FATCA agreement must be approved by the EU Parliament as part of its co-decision powers under the Lisbon Treaty.
Any FATCA agreement must have appropriate privacy safeguards whatever that means approved by the EU Parliament.
A couple of background notes on at least one of these MEP’s
Sylvie Goulard is actually a pretty big deal in France. She is a graduate of Sciences Po and ENA (Victoria can probably explain what that means in France but it is A LOT bigger deal than having gone to an Ivy League school in North America). Before becoming an MEP Goulard was a political advisor to Romano Prodi and Valery Giscard D’Estaing(a former president of France) .
Unfortunately it is quite clear that in’t Veld and Goulard despite their commendable concern over FATCA do not truly know its full implications. I will post their contact information soon. I think we need to start getting some of our EU members here to start making contact with these individuals.
@Tim
I respect these two MEPs for what they are doing, but for what its worth I’ve thrown in the towel and am waiting for my renunciation appointment to be scheduled. I imagine that many others in the EU have also given up hope that this will be going away and are doing the same. That being said, I will support any MEP in the next European elections who has a track record of opposing violations in data protection laws, ACTA, the US government’s financial bullying and so on. Let’s hope that they can water down FATCA with an EU-wide agreement, though I don’t see how they could do much more unfortunately.
I read the letter. It looks to me like they are suggesting that instead of just the 5 countries, all the EU countries should be involved in negotiations with the US. I didn’t get any sense that the writer of the letter has any problem with the agreement, except that it only includes 5 countries.
@CanuckDoc
I agree with you to a point. They want certain privacy “safeguards” though something I have no idea as to what it really means. I am planning on trying to contact these two in the future when I have some time.
@Both
That is the crux of it, yes. The EU needs to have consensus and member states can’t negotiate individual deals all over the place. The recent fiscal compact is on somewhat shaky legal grounds in terms of its EU-level legal basis since the UK has failed to sign up. I am also interested to find out what “privacy safeguards” that they have in mind are.
On a positive note though, I suppose that the IRS could lose their “partner countries” if DATCA gets derailed by Florida and Delaware. I imagine that there are many more actual EU-based tax cheats hiding money in the US than there are US ones hiding money in the EU (ie everwhere else but Switzerland!). Interesting times ahead.
Yes, Madame Goulard is what is known as an “enarque”. She is a product of what is referred to here as the Grandes Ecoles and these folks have enormous power here in France. Think Harvard times 10. They have a near monopoly on high government positions and they pretty much run the show. They are not necessarily found in one place on the political spectrum – they can be either Left or Right. There are a lot of discussions in France about whether or not their status is justified and I won’t comment on that. I will say that all of the people I know what have gone through these schools are absolutely brilliant – very VERY powerful CPU’s…
Sophie in t Veld was on twitter again this morning complaining about FATCA. I need to get in touch with her if none of the European readership here is willing to.