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Employment
69.2 percent of the European Union population aged 20 to 64 were employed during 2014, which increased by around 3 percent since 2002. Eurostat defines employed people as anyone who during the reference week did any work for pay or profit for at least one hour. The countries with the highest employment rate are generally to be found in Northern European countries, as well as the Baltic states and Central European countries, like Germany and Austria. In 2014 Sweden topped the list with 80 percent of the population having an employment. On the other side of the spectrum Eastern and Southern European countries have the lowest employment rate. Four countries, namely Croatia, Greece, Italy and Spain had employment rates below 60 percent. All European Union member states, except for Germany, saw a decline in the employment rate during the financial crisis, but Spain and Greece were hit the hardest. Spain's employment rate dropped by 10 percentage points since 2007, while Greece's employment rate dropped by more than 13 percent since 2008. Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom already surpassed their pre-crisis employment level. The highest increase of the employment rate since 2000 can be found in Bulgaria with a 10 percentage increase, followed by Germany and Malta with 9 percent and the Baltic states with an increase between 6 and 8 percent. Additionally, Sweden and Germany are the only countries which have been successful in reaching their Europe 2020 targets they set in 2011.

When it comes to the difference between male and female employment the gender gap is smallest in countries like Finland (1.9 %-points), Lithuania (2.5), Sweden and Latvia (both 4.6). Below the European Union average, and thus displaying the biggest gap between the employment of male and female labour, are generally Southern and Eastern European countries, with the widest gap in Malta (28.4), Italy (19.4) and Greece (18.3). However, Malta's female employment rate rose significantly since 2002, when the employment gap consisted of almost 50 percentage points. In most European countries the gap closed in the last 10 years, even though in some countries, most notably in Greece, the gap only got smaller, because the employment rate of men dropped due to the financial and economic crisis.

The euro area seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 10.3% in January 2016, while The EU unemployment rate was 9.4%, both dropping steadily in recent years (pre crisis level?). Among the member states, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Germany (4.3%), the United Kingdom (5.0% in December 2015) and Malta (5.1%), and the highest in Greece (24.0% in December 2015) and Spain (20.5%).

Taxation
Taxation within the European Union is mostly regulated by the Member States.Direct taxation isn’t dealt directly within the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union, resulting in the fact that it is still within the competence of member states. The only legal basis for harmonization is Art. 115 TFEU, which gives the Council of the European Union the possibility to act on legislation, if the establishment or the functioning of the internal market is directly affected. But unlike other policy areas it must be adopted unanimously by the Council of the European Union, after consulting both the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee. This makes it hard for bills to be adopted and thus far only little progress has been made in the field of direct taxation. Only few directives have been introduced throughout the European Union, e.g. Parent Subsidiary Directive and the Savings Directive. The Court of Justice, however, used the fundamental freedoms when ruling on direct taxation and thus limiting the sovereignty of member states.

One way which could impact direct taxation is the enhanced cooperation procedure, which was last modified in the Treaty of Lisbon. It requires at least nine member states and allowes them to pursue closer integration withouth impacting other countries. This is currently being used to introduce the European Union financial transaction tax.

Tackling harmful tax competition and aggressive tax planning is a major aim of cooperation at EU level. In June 2013 the European Commission started to investigate tax ruling practices of its member states and a year later it opened formal investigation. Throughout 2015 and 2016 the Commission, with the help of state aid rules, found several EU member states tax practices to be in breach with EU rules. Additionally the commission is currently trying to fight tax evasion and proposed the Anti-Tax Avoidance Package in January 2016, as well as pursuing harmonization in the field of corporate taxation with the proposopal of the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base.

With the exception of VAT, which has been harmonized to a certain degree throughout the European Union, in the field of individual and corporate taxation there are huge disparities between member states. Northern European countries have the highest income tax rates, while Eastern European countries have the lowest and some even use flat taxes, as well as having the lowest corporate tax rates.

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