The announcement came on Monday just in time for the start of lunch from American Finance Minister Janet Yellen with EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and ECB President Christine Lagarde in Brussels.

A Commission spokesman announced that the EU authority was putting its plans for its own European digital levy on hold for the time being.

The reason is the “extraordinary” breakthrough that the finance ministers of the most important industrialized and emerging countries (G20) achieved in Venice over the weekend.

The Commission wants to "reassess" the situation in the autumn.

Werner Mussler

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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In principle, the ministers in the lagoon city decided on a global minimum tax and a reallocation of taxation rights for the largest and most profitable corporations in the world.

The latter in particular is aimed at the large American digital corporations because it limits their ability to tax their income in countries with low tax rates.

The agreement in principle should be finalized by October.

The withdrawal from Brussels is due to American pressure.

Yellen had already indicated in Venice that her government would not sign the global agreement if the EU insists on its own digital levy.

The American government fears that American digital corporations will be taxed twice.

For the EU Commission, which has been targeting those same corporations for some time, this did not play a role until recently.

EU tax commissioner Paolo Gentiloni insisted on the weekend - also in Venice - that he wanted to stick to the digital tax.

This cannot be compared with a digital tax.

Last week there was talk in Brussels that the Commission would present its plans on July 20th.

Consequences for the low-tax country Ireland

Von der Leyen has apparently stopped this timetable at short notice to prevent the conflict over the digital levy from burdening her discussions with Yellen. Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe was also likely to have been relieved. His country is one of four EU member states that reject the compromise on minimum tax that was sealed in Venice and negotiated within the framework of the OECD. In the low-tax country of Ireland, a number of American corporations tax their (European) earnings.

The fact that the Commission is now viewing the global agreement as a kind of replacement for an EU digital levy contradicts the previous EU position. At their budget summit a year ago, the heads of state and government had expressly asked the Commission to propose a separate digital levy to co-finance the EU budget, i.e. as new EU own resources, in the first half of 2021. This should be introduced independently of the global negotiations on a minimum tax that were already underway at that time. The reason is that the new own resources - which also include the income from a new CO2 border tax and (theoretically) a financial transaction tax - are to be used for the early repayment of debts that the EU took out for the first time to finance its Corona reconstruction fund Has.This source of finance is now in question.

Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) did not address this in Brussels. Unlike Yellen, he said he was "perfectly sure" that the G-20 leaders would come to an agreement at their October summit. In the European Parliament, the Commission's decision received a mixed response. The Greens MP Rasmus Andresen said the commission should not spare Facebook, Google and Apple under American pressure. The digital levy is one of the central pillars for the future design of the capital adequacy decision. Therefore, the Commission should not postpone its proposal forever. ? On the other hand, the CSU parliamentarian Markus Ferber demanded that the EU should "dutifully implement" the global agreement and not be allowed to add its own additional digital levy."The digital delivery has already caused enough irritation," said Ferber.