Mr. Alain Lamassoure:

If the principle of the common consolidated corporate tax base, CCCTB, of harmonising the definition of taxable profit is blanched, there will be a fall-back position that will be a race to the bottom. Members of the joint committee are accountable to Irish citizens and I am accountable to French citizens. If I am not able to find a way to settle this matter and prevent Renault and other French multinationals going elsewhere, such as Amsterdam, Dublin, Luxembourg or Berlin, I will manage to propose the same treatment and privileges. It would be detrimental to everybody.

On apportionment, we have taken the OECD formula, adding a fourth factor. It is a proposal and it is debatable. The fourth factor would take on board the case of digital economies and particularly digital platforms. This factor is the number of personal data collected and exploited for commercial purposes in a jurisdiction. It is fair to smaller, medium-sized and bigger countries.

It was argued that if we had to turn to CCCTB, it would be detrimental to Ireland but why would it be? It would depend on the content. Why is Ireland not making the case that its system is the best? It is transparent - apart from Apple - but the double Irish and Dutch sandwich are being phased out. It is very simple. Why do the Irish not propose their definition of tax on profits? The Irish system could then become the European system. It would not be detrimental to Ireland in that case but rather a triumph for Ireland. We could compete on tax issues on a transparent basis. My national system is creaky, old and completely outdated. When we went to Estonia, we were struck by the simplicity of its system, which was formulated far more recently than ours.

In France - it also is the case in the Netherlands and Germany - our personal and individual income tax system was devised and came into force before the First World War and our corporate tax system was devised immediately after the Second World War. That was 70 years ago. It did not take account of the existence of multinationals, the Internet or digital economies. We must update it.