Franco Roccatagliata

European Commission, TAXUD, Brussels- Belgium

The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union recognises that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) plays a fundamental role on the world stage and pushes, explicitly, the European Union to avoid any ‘regionalistic’ isolation and to co-operate with it and with other major international Institutions (ssss1).

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, has concretely acted in accordance with the abovementioned political orientation included in the ‘constitutional charts’ of the Union. In fact, the Commission, on the legal basis of the Supplementary Protocol to the OECD Convention, enjoys a special and unique ‘full participant’ status, which enables it to fully engage, participate and contribute to the work of the OECD on an equal footing with full Members, except for voting rights (ssss1).

Whilst in the remote past (ssss1) there were tensions between the OECD and the European Union, as both sought to influence economic and social policy in European countries, relations have improved as more countries joined the EU, while the OECD adopted a more global focus (ssss1). The OECD currently has 37 members, 22 of which are EU Member States (ssss1), but, unfortunately –at least on tax matters– the EU does not consistently “speak with one voice” as a global actor on the OECD scenario. Nonetheless, the European Union is a major contributor to the overall OECD budget through voluntary contributions, with EU funds representing a quarter of all voluntary funding given to the Organisation in 2019. In addition, the 22 EU Member States provide together a major part of the OECD budget (about 40% of the assessed contributions). As numerous Commission services are financing OECD work annually (ssss1), the Commission, obviously, have an interest to have the OECD functioning in a way that serves common interests.