"I think so". Thus the Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni to reporters who asked him, on the sidelines of the European Summit in Tallinn, if he will proceed with enhanced cooperation on the subject of web tax if there is no general agreement in the EU.
“It is somewhat the sense of the document that” Italy, France, Germany and Spain “had agreed on at the end of August in Paris and addressed to the heads of state and government here. We cannot accept the idea that the right of establishment of companies for web giants is conceived as in past times when taxes were paid where there were factories and workers. There are platforms that make our lives easier and that we don't want to give up for anything in the world which nevertheless have sensational volumes of business in our countries and perhaps few employees. So there is a proposal from the Commission, we have to go ahead but the individual countries must work in coordination with each other also with enhanced cooperation”, and quickly.
According to Gentiloni, “it is interesting” that the digital economy is being discussed “in a country like Estonia, which is small but avant-garde. Digital is needed for the competitiveness of businesses and to make life easier for our fellow citizens". And yet, he specified, "since the EU is dealing with giants that are largely not European, it must seriously address the problem of harmonizing fair taxation for these digital giants".
