Despite a proposal by the European Commission to establish new own resources to fund the European Union's budget, including to repay the debt used to finance the EU’s post-pandemic economic recovery efforts (NGEU), no real debate has yet taken place on the specific nature of these new own resources. At the same time, member countries face many pressures, from the need to improve competitiveness to ensure tax fairness and create fiscal space for necessary investments for the green transformation and other objectives, which require both public and private funding.

The goal of this event was to discuss both the own resources question, to explore how the efficiency of taxation in the EU – including at the member state level – can be improved. The link between these two questions is important: a more efficient tax system would provide more room for both the EU and the Member States to fish from the same pond – or to increase some taxes without increasing distortions.