Reacting to today’s ruling of the European General Court to annul the Commission's landmark decision qualifying a tax ruling granted to Starbucks as an illegal subsidy, Jonás Fernández, MEP and S&D Group spokesperson on economy, said:

“Today’s ruling by the European General Court on the Dutch deal with Starbucks shows we need more robust EU rules to ensure everybody pays their fair share. The EU’s state aid rules are not necessarily the most adequate tool to tackle tax avoidance. However, the fact that the European General Court confirmed the European Commission's decision on the state aid granted to Fiat by Luxembourg shows that the Commission is following the right path in pursuing its investigations into suspicious tax rulings.

“What is now needed are a number of important reforms such as publishing the country-by-country report or a common consolidated corporate tax base, which are currently blocked by a few member states. It is unacceptable that the slowest, most unwilling members can dictate the pace and block progressive tax policy. This is why the S&D Group is campaigning to end unanimity on tax issues. People expect us to end the scandal of tax rulings which allow big multinationals to pay as little as 1% or 2% in taxes. We hope EU governments will finally listen to their citizens’ call for tax justice. ”