The European Union on Tuesday removed the Bahamas, Belize, Seychelles and the Turks and Caicos Islands from its blacklist of tax havens, a mechanism regularly criticized by NGOs for its ineffectiveness.
The instrument, supposed to fight against tax evasion by multinationals and wealthy people, was created in December 2017 after several scandals, including the
“Panama Papers”
and
“LuxLeaks”
.
Sanctions against
“blacklisted”
countries may include the freezing of European funds.
The blacklist, updated twice a year, now includes 12 jurisdictions deemed uncooperative: American Samoa, Anguila, Antigua and Barbuda, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Panama, Russia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu.
The Council of the EU, a body which brings together the 27 member states, invited these countries
“to improve their legal framework in order to resolve the problems identified”
, in a press release.