Brussels, 23/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - On 22 February, the Greek government signed the OECD's Convention on Mutual Financial Assistance in Tax Matters, which introduces close cooperation and the exchange of information between the tax authorities of member states party to the convention. So far, 33 countries, including France, Germany, the UK and the US have signed up to this agreement. It is expected to enable Greece to more easily obtain information for tackling tax evasion at a time when it has to urgently consolidate its public finances in order to satisfy the demands of its creditors. The OECD said that signing up to this convention meant that solutions were being examined to help provide Greece with the appropriate resources for increasing its tax revenues, while taking into account the enormous sums sent to Switzerland by Greek nationals and the technical difficulty the Greek tax authority had in tackling international tax avoidance.
In parallel, and still with the same hope of bringing in revenue, Greece opened talks last October with Switzerland to examine the possibility of a discharge agreement, similar to the so-called “Rubik” agreement already concluded between Switzerland and London (see EUROPE 10499). For the time being, no decision has been taken but the urgency of the budgetary situation could push Athens to begin formal negotiations along this route. This possibility provoked a strong response from Catherine Trautmann (S&D, France) who, during a plenary session at the Parliament on 15 February (see EUROPE 10554), criticised this kind of agreement and called on the European Commission to take action to tackle tax evasion on Greek capital in Switzerland, while demanding the communication of banking data, as obtained by the US. (FG/transl.fl)