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Global Tax 50 2015: Eva Joly
MEP; vice-chairwoman, European Parliament special committee on tax rulings; ICRICT commissioner
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| Eva Joly is a new entry this year |
Originally from Norway, Eva Joly forged her legal career in France by specialising in financial affairs before taking office as an examining magistrate at the High Court in Paris. In that role, Joly investigated the financial scandal that consumed France's state-owned petrol company Elf Aquitaine, gaining a reputation for persistence in fighting corruption and fraud in the process.
Since 2009 she has represented France as a member of the Green Party at the European Parliament.
"I am not getting away from combating fraud. This is why I am going into politics. It's another way of fighting fraud in the interests of ordinary people, trying to prevent the oligarchy taking all the power and all the money," Joly told The Guardian in 2011.
In 2015 she became vice-chair of the European Parliament's special committee on tax rulings (TAXE) using her passion for tax justice to help steer the committee's work. This included reports pushing for public country-by-country reporting (CbCR) – in 2009, she was the MEP who first tabled the resolution for CbCR at the European Parliament – as well as urging the European Commission to accelerate its work on the common consolidated corporate tax base.
Also in 2015, Joly became a member of the independent commission for the reform of international corporate taxation (ICRICT). The group pushed heavily, along with other tax campaigners, for an intergovernmental tax body within the UN at the financing for development conference in Addis Ababa in July.
In a long-spanning career as both magistrate and politician, Joly has persistently fought for justice. She is also renowned for not mincing her words. In March, controversy descended on Eurogoup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem for imposing austerity conditions on Greece that would cut public spending in vital sectors, despite coordinating tax policies that deprived other nations of revenue during his time as Dutch finance minister.
"To call this hypocrisy is to put it mildly," was Joly's take on the situation. Straight-talking indeed.
And, while her inclusion in this list is not just based on her penchant for outrageous (read, cool) eyewear, ITR definitely approves of those glasses as well.