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The aim of the two proposals, discussed in this briefing, was to improve the use, quality of, and access to traineeships across the EU. In line with the 'evaluation first' principle, the impact assessment (IA) accompanying the two proposals was prepared after the evaluation. Its intervention logic captures the problem, the specific objectives and the internal drivers well. However, more attention could have been devoted to the external drivers. The IA describes the areas and the policy options alongside ...

This handbook provides an illustrated overview of the main fishing gears currently used in the EU. For each gear, the handbook outlines the essentials of its design, operation method and target species, and shows the main Member State fishing fleets that use it. In addition, it indicates the name of the gears in Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese.

While shell companies – company entities that have no or minimal economic activity – can serve useful commercial and business functions, they are sometimes abused by companies or individuals for aggressive tax planning or tax evasion purposes. To ensure sustainable public finances under the exceptional circumstances imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, in December 2021 the European Commission presented a directive on preventing shell companies from misusing their structure for tax purposes ('Unshell ...

The crypto-asset sector, while still relatively new, has already changed the world of payments and investment forever. The fast-changing, mobile nature of the sector and its growing market prominence poses challenges, however, for tax authorities, which are not always able to track the capital gains made from trading crypto-assets. On 8 December 2022, the European Commission proposed to set up a reporting framework that would require crypto-asset service providers to report transactions made by EU ...

When businesses start operating across borders, they are faced with a new and unfamiliar corporate tax system in each EU Member State. As a result, businesses with cross-border activities have to spend time and resources on understanding and complying with complex local corporate tax rules. This represents a significant administrative burden, in particular for small companies. On 12 September 2023, to lower tax compliance costs, the European Commission tabled a proposal for a Council directive to ...

When businesses start operating across borders, they are faced with a new and unfamiliar corporate tax system in every EU Member State. As a result, businesses with cross-border activities have to spend time and resources on understanding and complying with complex local corporate tax rules. This represents a significant administrative burden for those companies, increases the risk of double taxation and discourages companies from taking full advantage of the single market. On 12 September 2023, ...

As the new parliamentary mandate begins, this note looks back at notable achievements of the previous legislative term in the area of taxation. It then looks ahead to possible future action that could help the Member States and the European Union (EU) meet revenue needs in the context of climate and defence spending requirements, or bolster competitiveness by simplifying tax compliance for businesses operating across the single market.

This briefing tracks progress made in implementing digital measures under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The RRF is at the core of Next Generation EU, the unprecedented recovery instrument helping EU Member States address the socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital transformation is one of the RRF's six pillars and a shared priority for the EU. The RRF dedicates 26 % of its overall funding to digital objectives in various digital policy areas, of which digital public ...

The implementation timetable for cohesion policy is defined largely by its legislative framework. In order to be able to plan parliamentary work and exercise systematic scrutiny of policy implementation and of the Commission’s work, it is essential to have an overview of the timing of different steps in policy implementation in the coming years. This type of briefing was first published (and subsequently updated) in 2014 covering the 2014-2020 programming period. This version includes the policy ...

In most countries in the European Union (EU) and in the rest of the world, debt is treated more favourably from a tax perspective than equity, with interest payments on loans generally being tax deductible. In contrast, costs relating to equity financing, such as dividends, are mostly non-tax deductible. This unequal treatment of debt and equity leads to a bias towards debt in businesses' investment decisions and can lead to high levels of indebtedness in the EU corporate sector. On 11 May 2022, ...