EU confident holdout states will join global tax deal

The EU countries not signing the deal "pose a serious risk to implementing the [global] deal in the European Union," said Zach Meyers, a research fellow at the Center for European Reform.

"This is because an EU-level directive will be needed to implement the deal and that directive would require unanimity, so it cannot be imposed on unwilling EU member states," he told Law360.
Cyprus, which isn't in the international framework that negotiated the tax deal, has said it would reject a minimum tax, so it could veto the OECD deal within the EU.

Meyers said he believes Estonia and Ireland will ultimately be open to compromise, but Hungary "may be more concerning" given its record of disputes with Brussels on various matters. The country "may be more willing than other member states to block the proposal, even if it is acting alone," Meyers said. He didn't have a comment about Cyprus.