Late in the evening of December 12, 2022 on the website of the Council of the European Union a press release was published stating that that the Committee of Permanent Representatives reached the required unanimous support and that the ambassadors of EU member states decided to advise the Council to adopt the Pillar 2 Directive.
Then in the morning of December 15, 2022 Rzeczpospolita (a Polish daily economic and legal newspaper) came with the news that Poland vetoed/did not (yet) support the adoption of the proposed Council Directive on ensuring a global minimum level of taxation for multinational and large-scale domestic groups.
A written procedure for the adoption of a package of agreements was launched. Initially EU member states had until December 14, 17.00 to send their replies General Secretariat of the Council of the EU. Upon the request of Poland the original deadline of 17.00 was extended to 20.00. According to Rzeczpospolita when this deadline was also missed, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, made a last-minute attempt to convince his colleague Morawiecki to withdraw the Polish .
As it turns out it was/is an all or none package. Since one of the agreements of the package regards the release of 18 billion euros in EU aid to Ukraine, the fact that Poland does not (yet) support the adoption of the Council Directive arranging the implementation of Pillar 2 in the EU seems to mean that Poland indirectly also jeopardizes this release of 18 billion euros in EU aid to Ukraine.
According to Rzeczpospolita, Prime Minister Morawiecki is expected to move the issue to the meeting of EU leaders that will be held on December 15, 2022, even though it is not formally on the agenda. The newspaper also states that it seems that the deadline for accepting the package was again extended.
So let’s see how this evolves in the coming hours/the days to come.
Those who speak Polish can find the article as published in Rzeczpospolita here.
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