eBay’s Cathy Foster presents VAT petition to MEP Cătălin Sorin Ivan

Last week six small businesses from five European Union (EU) Member States arrived in Brussels to share their successful business stories and engage in constructive debates with legislators on behalf of Internet-enabled small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Europe. During these meetings the sellers from Belgium, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania discussed the latest developments impacting the Digital Single Market and how current policy initiatives such as Value Added Tax (VAT) are influencing their small businesses.

At a stakeholder lunch Cathy Foster, eBay Vice President of Global Government Relations & Public Policy, presented our current VAT petition to Cătălin Sorin Ivan, Member of European Parliament and the Rapporteur on the VAT reform file. So far over 100,000 EU citizens have participated in the VAT petition campaign, calling for a simple, fair, and SME-friendly VAT system for online commerce. Different business and association stakeholders also shared their views on the different aspects of VAT reform.

During this event the SMEs had the good fortune to meet with Tom Vandenkendelaere, Member of the European Parliament, Kristian Hedberg, Deputy Head of Commissioner Bienkowska’s Cabinet, Clare Bury, Deputy Director-General, Directorate-General Communications Networks, Content and Technology and many other EU policy makers. The VAT petition was also presented to many of these policy makers to ensure the collective voice of the EU VAT petition participants was heard.

eBay Government Relations will continue to stay actively involved in EU VAT reform discussions on behalf of the company and our customers in Europe.