Juncker should be opposed… for what he’s done for 1% & Luxembourg’s tax haven laws
The Guardian explains why opposition to Juncker as EU President is somewhat misguided.
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’s Ruritanian title carries a whiff of archaic glamour. But it is nothing more than a piratical state. The only difference between pirates old and new is that instead of using muskets and cannons to seize other people’s money, Luxembourg uses accountants.
We don’t see it because the EU turns the British upside down. Conservatives deplore Europe because it threatens national sovereignty, even though the euro is bringing cuts to welfare states and wages conservatives approve of in other circumstances. The liberal-left thinks of itself as internationalist and therefore bites its tongue and mumbles its words when the EU promotes policies it would condemn if they came from Westminster.
Please put your prejudices aside, if you can, and concentrate instead on why Luxembourg matters.
What heavy industry the duchy had was vanishing by the early 1990s. During Juncker’s reign as Luxembourg’s prime minister from 1995 to 2013, the duchy reinvented itself as Europe’s largest tax haven: a land fit for Bernie Madoff to trade through. It allowed conglomerates to avoid tax through intermediate holding companies solely.
