Elena Gaita is a senior policy officer at Transparency International EU.
In February, after years of deadlock, the EU Council of Ministers gave its backing to draft legislation designed to bring greater transparency to the secretive world of corporate taxation. It will now enter into negotiations with the European Parliament on the final shape of the legislation.
So-called public country-by-country reporting (CBCR) by multinationals, a practice already in place for big EU banks, will allow citizens to see for the first time how and where large companies pay their taxes (as visualised in our online tool, taxtracker.eu).
At a time when record sums of public money are being channeled to multinational companies to help keep them afloat during the pandemic, it’s an important breakthrough.