I was in Vienna last week for a European tax conference. Inevitably, the Eurozone crisis loomed enormously large but, in addition to the crop of European experts, there were speakers from China, Africa and the US to remind participants that Europe is not an island. Throughout the two days there was one word that refused to lie down. It kept popping up in just about every speech or comment. That word was “Trust”. The need to restore trust between nations in Europe. The need to restore trust between governments and their electorates. The need for trust in forming companies’ tax policies. The need for trust between tax authorities and taxpayers. The keynote speaker was a brilliant financial journalist, highly prominent in her field, with a PhD in Social Anthropology who set the tone for the entire conference.

Overall, the vision was remarkably optimistic. Faced with economic armageddon in Europe, EU nations from North and South will understand that they need to cooperate. With the stampede of government changes at the polls voters will regain confidence in the executive branch. Faced with the nagging protests via social media and Occupy the World movements companies will abandon over-aggressive tax planning and adopt ‘moral’ tax strategies. With the prospect of never-ending tax disputes and lack of certainty companies will come forward and expose themselves to real time tax audits while tax authorities will be put on a leash to stop them going for the taxpayers’ throats.

And they will all live happily ever after.

Not quite.

In what I can only put down to western Europe’s post Holocaust obsession with, what itself can only be euphemistically referred to as, ‘political correctness’  everybody ignored the elephant in the room – and that elephant was cultural diversity. Different cultures have varying views on what constitutes the truth, fairness, morality – you name it. The only speaker I heard touch on the subject was the Chinese guest who suggested that companies’ approach to national tax authorities should depend on the nature of the executive, judiciary and tax authority in a particular country- but then until two years ago it was politically correct to be executed for tax evasion in China.

You can talk until the cows come home about building trust vertically, horizontally or three dimensionally – but, to put the matter in perspective, I would have happily challenged any of the speakers to convince the average Greek in the Street that he has a moral obligation to pay tax. For crying out loud, one of the  speakers was the geezer who wrote the Liechtenstein Tax Code which, although I have not yet set aside the 5 minutes  required to read it (rumour has it that he wrote it while traveling in an elevator), must surely be full of trust and  love to all men. Another guest was a former finance minister of Greece (I understand there have been quite a lot of them)  who, on the odd occasion he was coherent, expressed absolutely no remorse for anything that had happened and looked forward to  being bailed out by Germany, despite the fact that successive governments lied about their statistics.

If, to survive, the Eurozone needs to look for a single European cultural standard, then surely Austria should lead the way. Austria, of course, is a synonym for culture. It is, simply put, a cultural paradise. What nation could be more appropriate?  A quiet economically strong country, its people are the epitome of politeness. From the minute I boarded the Austrian plane my ears were massaged with Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz. The service was perfect. Viennese architecture is absolutely breathtaking and, as an American colleague commented to me while  we admired the Throne Room of  the Hofburg Palace , “We don’t get this in Miami”. Precisely. And the natural beauty, of course, only starts in Vienna.

Waydamminit!

While I sat last Tuesday in my hotel room thoroughly enjoying England’s richly undeserved win against the soccer representatives of the Thugdom of Ukraine (from which my grandparents fled a century ago), my mind wandered elsewhere.  While Ukraine is receiving much coverage for proudly co-hosting Euro 2012, didn’t Austria, in living memory, proudly co-host a slightly bigger competition- namely the Second World War? And for that matter, might the Austrians be responsible for that little contretemps attracting the title “Second World War”, since arguably if it wasn’t for them there wouldn’t have been a first one. And wasn’t it their president, the upright one-time Secretary General of the United Nations who was discovered to be a little too enthusiastic member of the Wehrmacht? And not one word of remorse from him or the country.  Even in the field of international taxation, in their own quiet way they have historically had one of the most brutally favourable holding company tax regimes in the developed world, grabbing what they could from the competition.

In short, Austria suffers from cultural schizophrenia. And maybe – just maybe – that is PRECISELY what Europe needs just now. And that is why the choice of Austria to stage the conference this year was so appropriate. Perhaps the other  members of the European Union – ignoring  Britain which surely won’t be there ten years  from now-  need to accept publicly the credo of German economic ethics while maintaining their own differing cultures at home.  They could take their cue from the Marrano Jews of Spain who chose conversion to Christianity over the auto-de-fe during the Spanish Inquisition but maintained their Jewish traditions at home in secret (although a cautionary word – that option did not work for the Jews in the 1940s). Alert readers will have spotted that this idea essentially represents Virtual Occupation. Given the history of the Continent, if the European project is not saved, Virtual Occupation may well be preferable to the alternative.

Next year’s conference is in Berlin.