歐盟委員會主席身陷盧森堡避稅醜聞

BRUSSELS — Less than a week after taking over as head of the European Union’s executive arm, Jean-Claude Juncker, the former longtime leader of Luxembourg, was buffeted Thursday by a flood of leaked documents detailing his home country’s role as a haven for hundreds of companies seeking to drastically reduce their tax bills.

布魯塞爾——在成爲歐盟執行機構負責人不到一週後，曾長期擔任盧森堡首相的讓-克洛德·容克 (Jean-Claude Juncker)於週四慘遭厄運打擊，大量泄密文件詳細描述了他的祖國成爲數百家公司的避稅天堂的情況，這些公司試圖大幅減少稅收賬單。

While Luxembourg’s finance minister denounced as illegal the unauthorized release of the embarrassing tax documents, pressure mounted on Mr. Juncker, who was Luxembourg’s prime minister from 1995 until last year, to clarify his involvement in tax avoidance schemes.

雖然盧森堡的財政部長譴責稱不經授權公佈令人尷尬的稅收文件屬於非法行爲，但容克面臨壓力，需要澄清自己在實施避稅計劃中所扮演的角色，容克從1995年開始一直到去年都是盧森堡首相。

“It is ridiculous to claim this was going on unbeknownst to Juncker — he was in charge,” Egide Thein, a former director of the Luxembourg Economic Development Bureau, a government body, said in a telephone interview. “Tax evasion was a willful Policy of the Luxembourg government, which always justified this by saying it was not its job to act as a tax man for foreign countries.”

“說容克不知情非常荒謬，他是首相，”政府機構——盧森堡經濟發展局(Luxembourg Economic Development Bureau)前局長埃吉德·泰恩(Egide Thein)接受電話採訪時說。“盧森堡政府有意實施逃稅政策，他們總是稱充當外國的稅務人員不是他們的工作，以此爲自己辯解。”

The documents also raised questions about whether Mr. Juncker’s tenure in Luxembourg, a country that the Tax Justice Network, a research group in London, once branded the “death star” of financial secrecy in Europe, now conflicted with his current duties, which include enforcing fair competition among European Union countries.

這些文件還引發了相關問題，即容克在盧森堡的職位是否與現在的職責——比如在歐盟國家維持公平競爭——存在衝突。盧森堡曾被倫敦研究機構稅收正義網(Tax Justice Network)稱爲歐洲金融保密領域的“死星”。

Tax avoidance, as legal ways of slashing or even eliminating tax bills are known, has become a highly sensitive political issue across Europe. The public has little patience for corporate welfare at a time when governments, struggling with low economic growth and high unemployment, have trimmed their budgets, often under pressure from the European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, now headed by Mr. Juncker.

避稅——減少甚至消除稅收賬單的合法途徑，已經成爲歐洲地區高度敏感的政治問題。當政府爲應對經濟增長緩慢、高失業率問題而削減預算的時候，公衆對企業收益的事是沒什麼耐心的。削減預算的舉措通常是迫於歐盟執行機構歐盟委員會(European Commission)的壓力實施的，該委員會目前由容克領導。

The resentment has fed growing disenchantment with the European Union — a malaise that Mr. Juncker has said he hoped to cure — and, on occasion, violent protests. In Brussels, the headquarters of the bloc’s administrative apparatus, riot police clashed with protesters on Thursday during a large demonstration against spending cuts proposed by the new Belgian government.

這種厭惡情緒促使民衆對歐盟的希望日益破滅——容克曾表示希望治癒這種痼疾——有時還會引發暴力抗議。週四，在歐盟行政機構的總部所在地布魯塞爾，反對比利時新政府削減開支計劃的大型示威活動，引發防暴警察與抗議者的衝突。

The leaked tax documents, released Wednesday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, relate to the tax affairs of global companies like PepsiCo, Ikea and FedEx, and shined a bright light on practices in Luxembourg, a tiny country of less than 550,000 that allowed hundreds of big companies to pay little tax either in Luxembourg or in the countries where they do much of their business.

國際調查記者同盟(International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)週三公佈的泄密稅收文件涉及百事(PepsiCo)、宜家(Ikea)和聯邦快遞(FedEx)等跨國公司的納稅情況，曝光了它們在盧森堡的避稅行爲。這個人口不足55萬的彈丸小國讓數百家大型公司在該國或其他存在大量業務的國家可以只繳納很少的稅款。

Mr. Juncker, who took over as the head of the European Commission last weekend after divisive jockeying among member states, did not answer questions on Thursday and canceled a scheduled public appearance at an event in Brussels.

在經過歐盟成員國的激烈爭奪後，容克於上週末成爲歐盟委員會主席。週四，容克沒有回答問題，並取消了在布魯塞爾公開露面參與活動的計劃。

Sven Giegold, the spokesman on economic and financial policy for the Green group in the European Parliament, voiced outrage over Luxembourg’s policies and questioned Mr. Juncker’s ability to act as evenhanded arbiter, as his new job in Brussels requires.

歐盟議會綠黨(Green)經濟及金融政策發言人斯文·吉格爾德(Sven Giegold)稱，自己對盧森堡的政策感到非常憤怒，並對容克在新工作崗位上所需要的公平仲裁者的能力表示質疑。

“These revelations are a major blow to the credibility of new commission president Juncker and his capacity to act for the public interest,” Mr. Giegold said in a statement. “The fact that E.U. commission president Juncker served as Luxembourg’s finance and prime minister throughout this period makes him directly complicit in this mass corporate tax avoidance.”

“這些信息使人們對新任歐盟委員會主席容克的可信度，以及他代表公衆利益行事的能力產生了很大的懷疑，”吉格爾德在聲明中稱。“歐盟委員會主席容克在這段時間擔任盧森堡財政部長和總理的事實，使他與這起大規模企業逃稅案產生了直接聯繫。”

The European Commission does not have the authority to determine the tax laws of member states, which zealously guard their sovereignty over such matters. But it has begun far-reaching investigations of whether countries have given illegal “state aid” to companies by offering them sweetheart tax deals that created unfair competition. Mr. Juncker’s suitability to oversee such investigations fairly is now a central issue.

歐盟委員會無權決定其成員國的稅法，這些成員國也通常會積極捍衛它們對於此類問題的主權。但是，委員會已經展開大規模調查，看看這些國家是否曾通過私下提供稅務協議，非法對企業進行“國家援助”，從而引起不公平競爭。目前，容克是否能公平監管此類調查，成了一箇中心議題。

A spokesman for the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, said Mr. Juncker was “determined to enforce the rules” of the European Union in each of the bloc’s 28 member states. He added that Mr. Juncker would not recuse himself from any eventual decisions to be taken by the commission in cases involving Luxembourg’s tax affairs. Mr. Juncker “cannot abstain” because he presides over the commission, Mr. Schinas said.

歐盟委員會發言人馬加里蒂斯·斯希納斯(Margaritis Schinas)說，容克已“決意”在歐盟的28個成員國中“強行實施這些規定”。他還表示，對於歐盟委員會在與盧森堡相關的稅務案件中所做的一切最終決定，容克都不會爲自己辯護。斯希納斯說，由於容克是歐盟委員會的負責人，所以他“無法逃脫”。

The comments suggested that Mr. Juncker would fight hard to avoid any curbs on his authority at such an early stage in his five-year mandate.

這些言論說明，容克將與所有限制他的權威的行爲展開激烈鬥爭，畢竟現在仍處於他五年任期的早期。

As head of the commission, Mr. Juncker presides over commissioners who each have a specific policy area, including ones responsible for tax policy and for leading inquiries into possible violations of competition rules.

作爲委員會負責人，容克還負責管理專事不同政策領域的委員，其中有些委員負責稅務政策，還有人負責調查違反競爭規定的行爲。

In a statement on Thursday, Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s competition commissioner, who is leading investigations into tax breaks for Apple, Starbucks and Amazon, avoided any criticism of Mr. Juncker, her boss. She said she had not had time to assess the leaked documents, which include so-called comfort letters — effectively private tax rulings — provided to more than 300 companies in Luxembourg.

歐盟委員會負責競爭的委員瑪格麗特·韋斯塔格爾(Margrethe Vestager)——他正在負責調查蘋果(Apple)、星巴克(Starbucks)和亞馬遜(Amazon)是否存在稅務違規行爲——在週四的聲明中，沒有對她的老闆容克提出任何批評。她說，她還沒時間查看泄露的文件，其中包括提供給盧森堡300多家公司的所謂的告慰函——這些其實是私下的稅收裁決。

Mr. Schinas announced Mr. Juncker’s canceling of his participation in a conference on Thursday, implying it had nothing to do with the furor over tax avoidance. He said Mr. Juncker had dropped out of “Good Morning Europe,” an event organized by French and Belgian news media, because another panelist, Jacques Delors, a former head of the European Commission, was too ill to attend.

斯希納斯宣佈，容克將不參加週四的一次會議，並暗示這與逃稅事件所引起的憤怒沒有任何關係。他說，由於歐盟委員會前負責人、另一名小組成員雅克·德洛爾(Jacques Delors)病情嚴重，無法參加法國和比利時媒體所組織的“早安歐洲”(Good Morning Europe)，所以容克也決定不參加。

Some commentators said that Mr. Juncker’s past roles in Luxembourg would work to the benefit of those who sought changes.

有些評論人士稱，容克此前在盧森堡擔任的職務將有利於那些尋求變革的人。

“It’s good to have Juncker as the president of the commission as he’ll now have to act on this,” said Karel Lannoo, the chief executive of the Center for European Policy Studies, a research organization in Brussels. “It is a scandal that so little has been done.”

“讓容克擔任委員會主席是好事，因爲他現在必須對此採取行動，”布魯塞爾研究機構歐洲政策研究中心(Center for European Policy Studies)的首席執行官卡雷爾·蘭諾(Karel Lannoo)說。“這個醜聞一直都被忽視。”