Following the Council's adoption today of the EU’s new list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, the S&D Group welcomes the decision to add further tax havens to its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions: Cayman Islands, Palau, Panama, and the Seychelles. It is certainly a positive step in the right direction. However, we cannot fail to highlight the deafening silence around some EU countries that are not complying with the criteria, and the rules the EU demands of third countries.

The S&D coordinator in the ECON committee, Jonás Fernández, stated:

“The EU must be transparent and apply their own rules at home before asking third countries to comply with EU criteria on fair taxation. About 80% of the profits shifted from EU member states are channelled to, or through, other EU countries, and tax avoidance via six specific EU member states results in a loss of EUR 42.8 billion in tax revenue in the other 22 EU countries.

“We urgently call on finance ministers to deal with the elephant in the room by further investigating countries that deserve to be listed, inside and outside of the EU.

“Current international negotiations on digital taxation and minimum effective tax also call on the EU to update its listing criteria to ensure very low tax rate jurisdictions belong to the EU blacklist.”