EU finance ministers have decided today to remove eight countries from the EU’s blacklist for tax havens.
Reacting to the news, Oxfam’s EU Policy Advisor on tax and inequality, Aurore Chardonnet, said:
“The EU is rushing to take countries off the blacklist without it being clear what they have actually committed to improve; this is further undermining the process.
“EU member states must heed the European Commission’s calls for more transparency and make public the commitments that countries on the so-called ‘grey list’ have made. Transparency means that both tax havens and the EU can be held to account, and the blacklisting process leads to actual reforms that help fight inequality.
“It is no secret that tax havens remain at the heart of the EU, with four European countries actually failing the EU’s own blacklisting criteria. EU governments should tackle tax havens within the EU with the same urgency they are pressuring other countries to adopt tax reforms that were decided by an exclusive club of rich countries.”
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