Brussels, 23/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 23 June in Berlin, the Secretary General of the Organisations for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Angel Gurría declared that, “over these eight months, we have made more progress than in the last 10 years” in the number of bilateral treaties on fiscal information exchange, which had doubled and now stood at more than 80. Mr Gurría was speaking at a conference on tax evasion and fraud, where he mentioned the progress that had been made by the four European OECD country members. He explained that, “Austria will discuss changes to its internal legislation next week which will enable it to upgrade its treaty network. Belgium, which already has a treaty with the US which meets the OECD standard, has written out to more than 80 countries proposing a protocol to existing treaties to incorporate the article 26 standard and today in Berlin signed a protocol with the Netherlands. Luxembourg now has treaties signed with Bahrain, Denmark, France, India, the Netherlands and the United States, which meet the OECD standard. Switzerland is also negotiating with a number of countries and has recently concluded its negotiations on revising its treaties with Denmark, France, Mexico, Norway and the US”. The OECD Secretary General also touched on the situation in Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco, jurisdictions that the OECD had identified in 2002 as “non-cooperative tax havens”. Mr Gurría was pleased that in the perspective of the G20 summit in London, these countries expressed a wish to sign agreements on the exchange of fiscal information exchange. He also referred to Liechtenstein, which at the end of last year signed a convention with the US and since then has launched negotiations with Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. (M.B./trans/rh)