A European Parliament special committee on tax has shown its frustration at the lack of cooperation with its investigation into tax competition from some of the biggest corporates based in the EU. The special committee on tax rulings (TAXE) has called for sanctions to be put in place on 14 of the 18 companies summoned to give evidence at hearings on their tax practices. Only four out of the 18 companies – Airbus, BNP Paribas, SSE and Total – attended hearings at the European Parliament in June and July 2015.

TAXE is examining agreements between states and multinational companies to reduce their tax bills, which is causing unfair tax competition between EU member states.

German rapporteur Michael Theurer said that experts had confirmed that certain EU countries had “knowingly implemented and exploited tax regimes to attract businesses”.

The sanctions could come in the form of exclusion from the EU's transparency register, for the companies in question to be 'blacklisted' and excluded from Parliament.

The following companies declined to attend the Parliament (some of them because they are subject to an ongoing investigation): Amazon, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Barclays, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Fiat Chrysler, Google, HSBC, Ikea, McDonalds, Philip Morris, Walmart and Walt Disney.

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In other EU news, the European Commission is due to present a proposal to reduce the dependence of European businesses on bank funding by developing capital markets in Europe. The capital markets union is due to be announced on 30 September. EU Commissioner for Financial Services, Jonathan Hill, said this would be “a way of complementing bank funding, not replacing it”.