Brussels, 15/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - On the fringes of the ECOFIN Council on Tuesday 14 May, seventeen countries (the five initial promoters, along with Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Slovenia) issued a common statement calling on the other EU member states and countries outside the EU to join their pilot scheme to spread the automatic exchange of bank information along the lines of the United States FATCA law. They call on the European Commission to support and promote OECD, G8 and G20 work in developing a single global standard for spreading the automatic exchange of bank account information across the globe. (FG/transl.fl)