Timmermans: Tsipras should keep reform promise

The Commission vice president talks tough on Greece, Brexit, better regulation.

The European Commission’s first vice president, Frans Timmermans, said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras should fulfill his promise to tackle structural problems hampering economic recovery — starting with tax reform.

“People [in Greece] with a lot of money do not pay a lot of tax, whereas people with an average income do pay a lot of tax,” Timmermans told the audience at a POLITICO breakfast conference in Brussels Tuesday. “The reason Prime Minister Tsipras won the elections was that he promised to tackle some of those serious problems.”

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However, Timmermans refused to speculate on what would happen if Greece were forced to leave the eurozone after a “no” vote in the upcoming referendum, saying that he would not discuss “iffy” scenarios.

However, the Commission’s second most powerful politician appeared to throw his support behind Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister whose term as chair of the common currency is up for renewal on July 21.

“Although the Commission officially does not have a position, and I will not take a position, you know what they say in the U.K.: ‘Is it clever to change the horse in the middle of the race?’” Timmermans said.

Timmermans spoke frankly on a range of topics — from the upcoming British referendum on EU membership to migration policy to human rights issues — at the conference.

Asked about the possibility that the U.K. could choose to leave the E.U. as part of the in-out vote promised by the government of Prime Minister David Cameron, Timmermans rejected the argument that European integration had brought with it a loss of British sovereignty.

“Because of this process [of integration], the peoples of Europe are closer together than before, which means that the risks of them going to war rather than having an argument at a conference table diminishes,” Timmermans said. “[European integratation] is not an instrument to attack the sovereignty of member states.”

Timmermans also lashed out at what he called “inconsistent” demands on the Commission to do more to end the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterreanean, as asylum-seekers arrive on the coasts of EU countries in unprecedented numbers.

“If people get angry with us because poor people are […] dying in the Mediterranean, and then say ‘solve it now – but don’t bring them here,’ then there is essentially inconsistency in that position,” Timmermans said. “That is understandable from a human point of view, because no one wants to see people die and everyone wants to do something about that.”

On the issue of the Commission’s ambitious “Better Regulation Package,” a reform proposal designed to made the EU legislative process more efficient, Timmermans warned that the increased transparency that underpins the proposal could prove bad news for EU lobbyists.

“If we put all our proposals on the Internet, it will not just be the exclusive domain of Brussels lobbyists — everyone across the world will see what we are proposing,” Timmermans said. “If a proposal is on the Internet for 12 weeks, anyone with an interest in the proposal will be able to scrutinize it and give us some feedback on it.”

As an example of the type of problem that Better Regulation will address, Timmermans said that EU members had not been able to agree on a way to standardize the form businesses need to fill out in order to pay value-added tax (VAT).

“It is mind-boggling,” he said. “There are all these member states saying ‘we want the internal market to work better’… Well, for Christ’s sake — solve this problem. You could solve it in a week.”

When asked about his take on the U.S. election campaign and the possibility of a showdown between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, Timmermans, who is a keen observer of American politics, said he was amused by the prospect.

“And then they complain about monarchies and dynasties in the European Union,” he said.

Timmermans also vowed to start a campaign to put legislation in place at an EU level to ensure that the legal rights of gay couples whose relationships have been recognized by a member state are recognized across the Union.

“I am now going to personally take this up and push it forward,” Timmermans said. “Even if you don’t want to have same-sex marriage in your country, at least have the decency to accept that other countries do have it and recognize that marriage when people move to your country who are married.”

Watch Timmermans speak on the first POLITICO breakfast conference: