Poland Tells Dutch Mind Your Own Business in EU Rule of Law Row - Bloomberg

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Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is “the last person” to lecture Poland over its apparent rule-of-law lapses because of the Netherlands’ reputation for offering very low corporate taxes, a Polish government spokesman said.

Poland has an ax to grind with the Netherlands after Rutte told his government last week that he’ll ask the European Union to withhold 36 billion euros ($42 billion) in recovery money earmarked for the bloc’s largest eastern member.

Separately, the EU may soon trigger a new tool that allows it to withhold budget payments to member states that fail to adhere to the bloc’s democratic standards.

“The Netherlands is asserting its interests in a very spectacular way, in a way -- to put it mildly -- that doesn’t quite live up to the standards of the European Union,” government spokesman Piotr Muller told the TVP Info news channel on Monday. “I am talking about tax issues, tax evasion, other mechanisms that the Netherlands has used for many years.”

The Dutch have one of the European Union’s lowest corporate tax rates and are under scrutiny from the bloc for being a conduit country -- or even a tax haven.

Muller’s comments follow a Twitter fight that broke out last week between Rutte and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who suggested the Dutch should protect journalists from “being killed on the streets” instead of focusing on media freedom in the Balkan EU member.

source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-18/poland-tells-dutch-mind-your-own-business-in-eu-rule-of-law-row

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