At the Ecofin Council on 18 February, the European Finance Ministers are preparing to revise the European blacklist of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. An update of this list was discussed on Wednesday 12 February by the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper).
According to one European source, there is an agreement at Coreper level, but “with reservations pending”. If the reservations are lifted, the item should then pass without discussion to the Ecofin Council, she said.
The fate of Turkey has given the Member States a hard time. According to information revealed by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir at the beginning of the week, Turkey was in danger of being put back on the blacklist. Although it has introduced an automatic exchange of information on bank accounts, as it had undertaken to do, it has reportedly omitted certain EU countries from its exchange, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus.
In the end, the country is likely to be kept on the ‘grey’ list of countries that have made commitments in order to avoid further tensions with Ankara.
The most recent update was in March 2019 (see EUROPE 12212/5). Since Belize’s removal last November (see EUROPE 12366/5), only eight jurisdictions remain on the blacklist: American Samoa, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)