Merkel is leaving, Macron is flailing, but the EU has a new heavyweight in Mario Draghi
By Alberto Nardelli / Bloomberg
One thing European leaders always knew about Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi was he would never lose his cool.
When European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker gathered senior policymakers on the 13th floor of the Berlaymont building in Brussels to thrash out details of the third Greek bailout in 2015, some were expecting trouble from then-Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.
However, as Juncker worked line-by-line through proposed tax changes with a small group including then-Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, Varoufakis was engrossed in debate with Draghi at the other end of the room, according to two people who were present. At 3am, the anti-capitalist firebrand and the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) were debating GDP deflators and macroeconomic policy dilemmas from the 1930s like a pair of academics.
Biden administration drops Trump s objections to a global digital tax dailymail.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailymail.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
G20 should not withdraw fiscal support too early: Germany’s Scholz
The world’s largest economies should continue their rescue and support measures for workers and companies in the COVID-19 pandemic as the recovery is taking longer than initially thought, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Friday.
“We must not scale back the support programs too early and too quickly,” Scholz said ahead of a virtual meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors of the world’s top 20 economies, adding he would campaign with his G20 colleagues for continued stimulus.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Paul Carrel)
G20 should not withdraw fiscal support too early: Germany s Scholz swissinfo.ch - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from swissinfo.ch Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Updated / Friday, 26 Feb 2021
16:32
US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen is reported to have told G20 finance ministers that Washington would drop the so-called safe harbour clause
The United States is no longer insisting on a disputed clause in its proposal for reform of global digital taxation rules.
It removes one of the biggest stumbling blocks to an international agreement, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.
Mr Scholz said in a statement that US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, told G20 finance ministers that Washington would drop the so-called safe harbour clause which had complicated talks on reforming global taxation among OECD member states.