Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of the Amending Protocol to the Agreement between the European Community and the Principality of Andorra providing for measures equivalent to those laid down in Council Directive 2003/48/EC on taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments

Following the adoption of Council Directive 2003/48/EC, the Savings Directive, and in order to preserve the level playing field of economic operators, the EU signed Agreements with Switzerland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino providing for measures equivalent to those laid down in the Directive. Member States also signed agreements with the dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Following the adoption of a proposal to update the Savings Directive, the Commission adopted on 17 June 2011 a recommendation for a mandate to initiate negotiations with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco and San Marino, in order to upgrade the EU’s Agreements with those countries in line with international developments and to ensure that those countries continue to apply measures equivalent to those in the EU. On 14 May 2013, the Council reached an agreement on the Negotiating Mandate by concluding that negotiations should be aligned with the recent developments at global level where it was agreed to promote automatic exchange of information as an international standard.

On the basis of a proposal presented by the Commission in June 2013, the Council on 9 December 2014 adopted Directive 2014/107/EU amending Directive 2011/16/EU and extending the mandatory automatic exchange of information between EU tax authorities to a full range of financial items in accordance with the Global Standard. The amendment ensures a coherent, consistent and comprehensive Union-wide approach to the automatic exchange of financial account information in the Internal Market. As Directive 2014/107/EU is generally broader in scope than Directive 2003/48/EC and provides that in cases of overlap of scope, Directive 2014/107/EU prevails, on 18 March 2015 the Commission adopted a proposal to repeal Directive 2003/48/EC.

In order to minimise costs and administrative burdens both for tax administrations and for economic operators, it is crucial to ensure that the amendment of the existing Savings Agreement with Andorra is in line with EU and international developments. This will increase tax transparency in Europe and will be the legal basis for implementing the OCDE Global Standard on automatic exchange of information between Andorra and the EU.

EUR-Lex: COM(2015)631: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2015:631:FIN

EUR-Lex: COM(2015)632: Proposal for a Council Decision on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of the Amending Protocol to the Agreement between the European Community and the Principality of Andorra providing for measures equivalent to those laid down in Council Directive 2003/48/EC on taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2015:632:FIN

ESO: Background information: Fighting tax evasion: EU and Andorra finalise negotiations on new tax transparency agreement http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-fighting-tax-evasion-eu-and-andorra-finalise-negotiations-on-new-tax-transparency-agreement/

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