Spain\u2019s busy goading the US again, this time by petitioning the European Commission to activate its Blocking Statute, which protects European businesses and individuals from foreign sanctions – in this case those imposed by Donald Trump on members of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The timing of this demand is somewhat awkward, as the same EU body has just threatened Madrid with legal action over its tax treatment of non-resident property owners. <\/p>\n
Brussels\u2019 legal challenge to Madrid will be welcomed by anyone who was appalled by Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s proposal to impose a 100 per cent tax on non-EU residents buying homes in Spain. In a written judgement, the EU Commission has questioned regulations that require non-resident owners in Spain to pay income tax on their properties, even if they aren\u2019t being rented out.<\/p>\n
The Commission argues that, by acting as a deterrent to EU citizens considering a property purchase in Spain, such rules might infringe European laws ensuring the free movement of capital and nondiscrimination. Spain has two months to justify or amend the legislation, or the case might be taken to the European Court of Justice. <\/p>\n
If this regulation is of questionable legality, S\u00e1nchez\u2019s 100 per cent tax proposal – made last January, in a misguided attempt to combat the housing crisis – surely has no chance of becoming law. Of course his government could argue that, because it would only apply to non-EU citizens, it would lie beyond Brussels\u2019 remit. S\u00e1nchez would effectively be saying: \u201cDon\u2019t worry, we\u2019re not discriminating amongst EU citizens, just against non-EU citizens.\u201d But discrimination – in this case against Spain\u2019s non-resident property owners, who may or may not be EU citizens – is partly why the current legislation is being challenged by the EU. It could also be argued by the Commission that any law that acts as a deterrent to property investment in an EU member state, as the 100 per cent tax proposal certainly would, is well within Brussels\u2019 remit. <\/p>\n
As it prepares its response to Brussels, the Spanish government is waiting on one from the same source. Madrid\u2019s demand that the EU activate the Blockage Statute is one of several that have been made since early last year, when Trump began imposing sanctions on ICC members investigating Israeli and American citizens for war crimes (neither the US or Israel are members of the ICC). <\/p>\n
The EU Parliament has twice passed resolutions requesting that the Commission protect ICC judges and prosecutors against what it sees as Trump\u2019s attempt to secure legal immunity; but the Commission has refused to budge, without explaining why.<\/p>\n
Both Brussels\u2019 and Madrid\u2019s demands are, at root, attempts to stop discriminatory treatment – in one case against non-resident property owners, in the other against lawyers with the temerity to question Trump. Hopefully both receive the result they want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s busy goading the US again, this time by petitioning the European Commission to activate its Blocking Statute,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[41587,211,210,36569],"class_list":{"0":"post-77816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-awaiting","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-brussels","11":"tag-response"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116538716237988800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}