Shifting priorities, slow progress : an analysis of EU tax recommendations

Title page 1

Contents 1

1. Introduction 2

2. Efficient tax structures 3

3. EU tax structures 4

4. Data and method 7

5. EU tax policy trends 10

5.1. Tax-related recommendations 10

5.2. Trends by tax instrument 12

5.3. Trends by policy objective 15

5.4. Implementation trends 17

5.4.1. Implementation status across EU countries 18

6. Discussion 20

References 21

Appendix 23

Tables 9

Table 1. Tax instruments and associated keywords 9

Table 2. Policy objectives and associated keywords 10

Figures 5

Figure 1. Tax ratios, simple averages 5

Figure 2. Evolution of the tax mix in EU27 5

Figure 3. Labour tax wedge 6

Figure 4. Environmental tax revenue, EU27 average 6

Figure 5. Evolution of tax-related CSRs (% of total CSRs) 11

Figure 6. Share of tax-related CSRs by country between 2011 and 2025 11

Figure 7. Tax-related recommendation trends by tax instrument (% of total tax-related CSRs) 12

Figure 8. Tax-related recommendation trends by policy objective 15

Figure 9. Distribution of implementation status of all tax-related recommendations issued between 2011 and 2024, evaluated in Semester cycle 2025 18

Figure 10. Successful implementation of tax-related recommendations issued between 2011 and 2024, evaluated in Semester cycle 2025, by EU country 19

Appendix Figures 23

Figure A1. Evolution of tax-related and all CSRs (absolute values) 23

Figure A2. Distribution of implementation status of tax-related recommendations issued in 2011, evaluated in Semester cycle 2025 23

Figure A3. Distribution of implementation status of tax-related recommendations issued in 2019, evaluated in Semester cycle 2025 24

Figure A4. Distribution of implementation status of all tax-related recommendations by tax instrument 24

Figure A5. Distribution of implementation status of all tax-related recommendations by policy objective 25

Figure A6. Distribution of implementation status of all non-tax-related recommendations (Semester cycle 2025) 25