Paul Johannes George Tang was born on 23 April 1967 in Haarlem in the Netherlands. Tang studied economics at the University of Amsterdam between 1985 and 1991, graduating cum laude. Afterwards he worked as assistant at Tilburg University and as trainee researcher at the University of Amsterdam. Between 1995 and 2005 he was employee at the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. In 2001 he earned a doctorate in economic sciences from the University of Amsterdam. He moved on to the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs where he was deputy director of General Economic Policies between September 2005 and March 2007.
In the internal Labour Party elections Tang was chosen to be lijsttrekker in the European Parliament elections of 2014, he won 52% of the votes. In the May 2014 elections Tang was elected to the European Parliament. In Parliament, Tang has been serving of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs since 2014. He was also a member of the Committee on Budgets and the Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect. He has been particularly active on policies files related to the Common Consolidated Corporation Tax Base, sustainable finance and Digital Services Tax. In May 2019, after the failure of drafting EU-legislation to tax tech companies, Paul Tang presented together with Henk Nijboer, MP of the Dutch House of Representatives, an own-initiative bill for a Dutch Digital services tax. The proposal hasn't yet been discussed in Parliament. In addition to his committee assignments, Tang has served as vice-chair on the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee and as member of the delegation for relations with the United States. In May 2019 Tang was re-elected to the European Parliament. The Labour Party obtained, with Frans Timmermans as top party candidate, six of the 26 Dutch seats in Parliament. Tang became again a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, but also substitute member of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. Since his re-election, he also became a member of the European Internet Forum. After being re-elected, Tang told a Dutch newspaper he wants to focus this mandate on taxation, sustainable finance and data. In the first months of the news mandate, Tang became shadow rapporteur on behalf of the S&D on the EU Taxonomy-proposal, which is part of the EU Action Plan on Sustainable Finance.
Political positions
Prior to being elected, in March 2014, Tang argued that top EU officials should not earn more than ten times the wage of the lowest paid EU employees. He also argued that the EU was impeding the economic growth of Europe, and argued for stricter supervision on banks in the EU and for reforms in the sector.
