Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has called on the European Commission to drop its plan for a common corporate tax base and work on more pressing economic issues.

Several other EU finance ministers at a meeting in Vienna yesterday also strongly opposed the controversial plan proposed by tax commissioner Laszo Kovacs, raising fresh doubts over its future implementation.

Mr Kovacs plans to present a proposal for a common corporate tax base by 2008 to make corporate tax more transparent across the EU.

But in a presentation to the 25 EU finance ministers, Mr Cowen said the plan was an "interesting academic exercise" that would ultimately undermine Irish sovereignty over taxation matters.

He said harmonising the hundreds of different elements used by states to calculate how much corporate income is taxable would lead to winners and losers in terms of the tax yield that was collected from companies. This would lead to pressure on national tax rates and remove the flexibility required to deal with rapid changes in economic circumstances.

He suggested that Mr Kovacs should concentrate his efforts on removing real tax barriers to doing business in the EU such as further reform of the VAT system.

Mr Cowen also signalled that more EU states were against the tax plan than for it and he didn't expect it to be a success.

Ireland, Slovakia, Britain, Latvia and Lithuania have all publicly criticised the plan.

Slovakia Finance Minister Ivan Miklos said yesterday he was against harmonising tax rates and had strong doubts about a common base.

"There are some rational arguments to harmonise the tax base but also significant risk, which is that it could be the first step to harmonise the tax rate," he said.

A Latvian official also said its minister for finance had spoken against the plan.

Mr Kovacs said the issue was "even more than difficult, a delicate undertaking for states". More than 10 member states resolutely support the measure while much less than 10 states oppose it, said Mr Kovacs, who on Wednesday said just three states were openly hostile to the plan.

Among the most supportive states are France, Germany and Austria. Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser said a harmonised corporate tax base across the European Union would help companies which operate in more than one country and face different national tax regimes, however he said a common tax rates on company profits remain a distant prospect.

"I am convinced that a common consolidated tax base could be an effective way to address tax obstacles for companies operating in more than one member state," said Mr Grasser, whose country Austria holds the EU presidency and was hosting the meeting of EU finance ministers.

Meanwhile, Mr Kovacs' commission colleague Charlie McCreevy said yesterday he had not changed his views on the issue and remained opposed to it.