14 May 2024

Economic and Financial Affairs Council, 14 May 2024 - Main Results

Withholding taxes

The Council reached an agreement (general approach) on the Council Directive on faster and safer relief of excess withholding taxes (FASTER).

VAT in the digital age

The Council exchanged views, making progress towards an agreement, on the value added tax (VAT) in the digital age package, which aims to tackle VAT fraud, support businesses and promote digitalisation.

The package sets out to modernise reporting obligations for VAT purposes by standardising the information that needs to be submitted by taxable persons on each transaction and by imposing the use of e-invoicing for cross-border transactions, which would contribute to the fight against VAT fraud.

Recovery and Resilience Facility

Ministers exchanged views on the state of play of the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).

The Council adopted implementing decisions approving the modified recovery and resilience plans submitted by Italy and Spain.

Ageing

The Council approved conclusions on the fiscal sustainability challenges arising from ageing.

The conclusions draw on the main findings of the 2024 ageing report prepared by the European Commission and the Economic Policy Committee (EPC). The report covers age-related public expenditure (e.g. pensions and health care).

The Council in its conclusions reaffirmed the need to further address the economic and budgetary consequences of ageing, including by adopting sound public finances, raising employment rates, and adapting pension and health care systems to these challenges.

Financial literacy

The Council approved conclusions on financial literacy that aim to contribute to delivering the capital markets union.

Financial services

The presidency presented the state of play of legislative proposals in the field of financial services. This is a recurrent item on the ECOFIN agenda.

Council

© Council of the European Union