Mr. Paul Tang:

I am a pragmatic idealist. For me, Europe is not an end in itself but a means to achieve something. If the world changes, we must change too. I pool sovereignty to gain sovereignty. As I said earlier, I am not a federalist. I do not see why I cannot be openminded and say that where we did not share sovereignty on some matters in the past, maybe we ought to now on certain issues, of which corporate tax is one. I am much in favour not only of harmonising the tax base and introducing an apportionment but also of a minimum effective tax rate. I do not think it is the type of competition that we would want and we cannot do it. I am concerned that we will compete with each other on this if we do not change the situation, which in this case means pooling sovereignty. For me it is not a matter of principle but it is pragmatic because I am neither a federalist nor a nationalist but am between the two. I want to have choices because that is what democracy is about.