For international and regional organizations such as the European Union (EU), taxation has become an important redistributive mechanism under the Sustainable Development Goals, which underline shared responsibility for poverty reduction as an outcome and the involvement of sectors beyond development cooperation. Focusing on the EU Platform for Tax Good Governance, this study investigates the European Commission’s means for tax good governance between the institution and developing economies. The results, which are based on interviews and a set of official documents, point to fairly strong policies for tax coordination and to a commitment to the implementation of the goals, but incoherencies in programme design when it comes to mainstreaming of tax good governance principles to different policy sectors. These stem from difficulties in finding unanimous solutions between the Member States, and from the limited collaborative working culture in the European Commission, owing to different and often competing internal interests.
European Foreign Affairs Review