The European Commission named and shamed seven EU Member States for facilitating tax avoidance on Wednesday. The European Semester country reports published on Wednesday signaled Belgium, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands. Country reports underscored so-called “tax planning schemes,” that is, a byword for tax-avoidance. The European Commission also released a study that clearly delineates the criteria for the evaluation of member state tax policies. Source: New Europe
It is less than two months since U.S. President Donald Trump travelled to Texas to declare that the U.S. energy industry, laid low by this year’s oil price crash, was back on its feet. “We’re OK now,” the president told the assembled crowd.
But bankruptcy numbers released this week tell a different story. Another 16 upstream U.S. oil and gas companies — producers and service providers — hit the wall in August, the same number as in July, according to law firm Haynes and Boone. Source Financial Post
The Bank of Italy said Italy’s public debt hit a new high of 2,560.5 billion euros in July, up 29.9 billion with respect to June. Source Ansa
Austria has said it still supports the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, despite growing reservations about the project in parts of Europe following the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny. Source Radio Free Europe
