Despite concerns that external factors such as the results of the British referendum on Brexit, the migration crisis, security threats and elections in Italy and Austria would undermine the success of Slovakia's Council of the EU Presidency, these factors actually had a rather positive impact on legislative work, said the Finance Ministry in its evaluation of its work during the presidency on Tuesday. The ministry pointed to an agreement achieved among member states on streamlining and extending the duration of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) or the so-called Juncker's Plan. "The result is an agreement that bolsters the transparency of approving projects and introduces more stringent criteria for choosing projects in such a way as to prevent EFSI support from pushing out private investments," reads the evaluation.
Another challenge in the wake of submitting the EU 2017 budget draft was reaching an agreement between the 28 member states first and then one with the European Parliament. "The first draft was put forward with a significant delay by the European Commission due to the British referendum. The Slovak team, however, managed to negotiate an agreement among member states in record time, i.e. 18 days after the draft was submitted," stressed the ministry.
Progress was also accomplished in the fight against tax fraud, with 2016 being an extraordinarily eventful year, as the uncovering of cases of European citizens and companies squirreling away financial resources in tax havens - the so-called Panama Papers case - laid bare the fundamental flaws in the system. In this respect, a tax blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions was also drafted.
