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| Money Laundering |
The finance ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland announced their plans to push for more bank transparency within Europe and beyond.
“Nobody can deny that bank secrecy is outdated, that we need an efficient system to tackle evasion strategies,” French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told reporters, flanked by his counterparts from the other countries. “Our mission is to create momentum. When these six major capitals of Europe move together, it creates a strong signal which nobody can resist.”
George Osborne, Britain’s finance minister, said he was pushing for more transparency from the UK overseas territories of the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands.
The announcement adds to pressure on Austria to sign up to EU rules for the automatic exchange of information on bank depositors. It follows Luxembourg’s decision this week to share foreign bank account details with EU governments from 2015, bringing it into line with all other member states bar one - Austria.
Earlier, however, Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter dismissed exchanges of information as an invasion of privacy and criticised other countries for failing to tackle what she called the real “hot spots” of money laundering.
“Austria is sticking to bank secrecy,” Fekter told reporters, placing her country in a minority of one when discussions on the issue among 27 EU ministers get fully under way on Saturday.
She attacked the Group of 20 top economies for not taking “any step to close the money laundering in all the islands like Cayman Islands, Virgin Islands or ... in Delaware”.
EU leaders will also discuss how to combat the tax haven issue when they meet next month, said the president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy.
“We must seize the increased political momentum to address this critical problem,” Van Rompuy, who chairs meetings of EU leaders, said in a broadcast statement.
Read more: EU’s biggest states vow to fight tax evasion - European Union - FRANCE 24
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