International

An end must be put to the shady tax deals made between the revenue service and multinational corporations, says SP Member of Parliament and finance spokesman Arnold Merkies. 'Clearly the deal between Starbucks and the revenue service is not as clean as Secretary of State Wiebes has always led us to believe,’ says Merkies. ‘It looks very much as if the Netherlands has closed its eyes to tax avoidance by this huge international company. I’d like to see a line drawn here and all tax agreements that multinationals make with the treasury made public.’

This week it was announced that, despite having violated all of the agreements on the budget, Spain would receive no punishment. German Christian Democrat Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was amongst those urging that Spain be given more time. Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, also a Christian Democrat, did everything to prevent a punishment being imposed on Spain. How differently these politicians comported themselves in relation to Greece, which was forced to destroy itself with still more budget cuts in order to reach the targets set. But of course Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras isn’t a Christian Democrat, but rather represents the left slice of the electorate. In my view this is a shameful example of the Old Pals’ Act at work.