As announced, on Thursday 10 October, the European Finance Ministers noted the removal of the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands from the European blacklist of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, as well as the removal of Switzerland, Albania, Costa Rica, Serbia and Mauritius from the ‘grey’ list of third countries that present tax risks but have undertaken to take corrective measures (see EUROPE 12342/13).
The United Arab Emirates, which now complies with all tax cooperation commitments, has been completely removed from the list. The Marshall Islands, on the other hand, will join the ‘grey’ list, as the country's commitments regarding on-demand information exchange continue to be monitored by the EU Council's Code of Conduct Group.
This leaves nine jurisdictions on the blacklist: American Samoa, Belize, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, American Virgin Islands and Vanuatu.
For the European Commission, these delistings are a sign that its approach is working. At a press conference, the European Commissioner for Financial Services, Valdis Dombrovskis, said that the list was a real “success” and that it had forced several well-known tax havens to make major changes to their regimes.
More than 100 harmful tax regimes have been eliminated worldwide in response to EU concerns, he stressed.
Oxfam, on the other hand, is far from being of the same opinion. “Today, the EU has whitewashed two of the world’s most harmful tax havens [Editor's note: Switzerland and Mauritius]. Despite recent reforms, both countries will continue to offer sweet treats to tax-dodging companies, like very low tax rates, accelerating the race to the bottom on corporate taxation”, said Chiara Putaturo, Oxfam's policy advisor. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)