Difficult job of picking out the good bits

Date: 26/11/1998

The EU's top tax officials trooped out of the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels last week in gloomy mood after this year's final meeting of the 'code of conduct' group.

Over the past few months, the group has been working on guidelines designed to eliminate 'unfair' EU corporate tax regimes which attract investment away from other member states.

But its most recent meeting was dominated by hours of fruitless debate after the group decided that finance ministers could not be expected to read a full account of its good works.

There then followed a protracted debate over which vital bits from their report should be passed to ministers when they next meet on Tuesday (1 December).

Should detailed annexes be included? 'Yes,' said some. 'No,' said others, while chairwoman Dawn Primarolo failed to decide either way. Several annexes were dropped when representatives insisted that “ministers won't read all these pages” (nine in all). Several of those present despaired at this fine example of democracy at work.