Christoph Konrad, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will start by thanking Mr Bersani for his cooperation in drawing up the report. What has come into being really is a compromise, and that is something I want to emphasise, since there are of course other opinions represented in our group, and I can tell the Commissioner that resistance to this policy at European level comes not only from the Member States but also from among the ranks of our group, that of the European People’s Party.

There is resistance not only to the single tax base for businesses, but also to the idea of a single corporation tax in Europe, which keeps on resurfacing in this particular debate.

So where do I, speaking as the shadow rapporteur for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, think there will be particular problems? I believe that if you start by talking about the tax base, it is virtually inevitable that you will end up next discussing the Member States’ tax rates, and that is something we will have nothing to do with. If we are to harmonise the tax base, we must be aware of the fact that we are, by so doing, obliged to make a deep incursion into the nation states’ tax-raising competences, and we want nothing to do with that either. If a tax base for European enterprises is to be created, it has to be borne in mind that businesses – DAX companies, for example – are even now operating in accordance with international accounting standards, and that is something that we have to accept. If, Commissioner, we are to make tax policy at the European level, we have to be aware of the fact that that is not far removed from competence in tax policy as described in the European Communities Treaty. That is something that needs to be borne in mind.

Finally, the fact that the European Court of Justice is due, tomorrow, to hand down a judgment in the case of Marks & Spencer, cannot do other than emphasise the obvious truth that the case law of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg is now extending ever wider the influence of Brussels. That is something else of which this debate should take account, and I want to stress that we would be mistaken to allow the European Union’s common system of law to become a community founded on laws made by judges – something that I, for one, would regard as unacceptable.