Brussels, 27/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - At the Global Forum taking place in Berlin this Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 October, more than 40 countries will sign an agreement on the early application of the new OECD global standard on the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEI). Under this pilot phase, the countries will exchange the information they are to collect from 31 December 2015 in 2017, instead of 2018. This pilot initiative was launched in April of this year by the countries of the G5 (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). According to the OECD, the list of signatories is in constant flux. San Marino, for example, announced at the last minute that it was to sign. Luxembourg will also be signing, the Grand Duchy confirmed on Monday 27 October. It is one of the 27 countries of the EU which agreed, in Luxembourg on 14 October, to apply the AEI in 2017 under the revised directive on administrative cooperation (2011/16/EU), which aims to transpose the global OECD standard on the AEI into EU legislation (see EUROPE 11176). For its part, Austria will be applying the standard later for technical reasons, but has undertaken to do all in its power to apply it before 2018, if technically possible. Switzerland plans to apply the AEI in 2018, in line with the OECD timetable. In an interview with The Times published on 27 October, Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, explained that Switzerland would be attending the meeting as an observer. “We have really achieved a paradigm shift in the international cooperation between tax administrations”, Schäuble told the Times. “In the financial markets, banking secrecy cannot stay as it was in the good old days”, he added. (EL)