A step towards greener financial markets

Sustainable investment

The European Parliament has just voted on its position on financial standards for defining what can be considered as sustainable economic activities and sustainable investments.

Parliament's call for tough action on tax must be heard

Tax

The European Parliament has just approved the special committee on taxation's (TAX 3) final report, which calls for EU Member States to take bold steps in order to tackle tax evasion, avoidance and money laundering. The Tax 3 report laments the lack of progress in the fight against tax avoidance and evasion by EU Member States, despite numerous tax scandals of the last few years and public pressure around the issue.

Anti-money laundering blacklist debate in European Parliament

Quote from Judith Sargentini

On the initiative of the Greens/EFA group, the European Parliament will debate the "Urgency for an EU blacklist of third countries in line with the Anti-Money Laundering Directive".

Oxfam report on tax blacklist

Quote from Molly Scott Cato MEP

Oxfam have published their latest findings into the EU's tax haven blacklist. European Union finance ministers will sign off on an updated EU black list next week, where it expected that several key tax havens will be removed from the list.

Sustainable Investments agreement reached

Quote from Molly Scott Cato MEP

“We are proud that once again the EU leads the world on environmental standards: this time by agreeing the world’s first mandatory disclosure regime for a major financial market," Molly Scott Cato, Greens/EFA MEP who worked on the file, comments.

Troika Laundromat leak

Quotes from Judith Sargentini and Molly Scott Cato

The OCCRP have just released their investigation the "Troika Laundromat", exposing how 4.6 billion USD from Russia and elsewhere was channelled through European banks and businesses, in what appears to be efforts to obscure the origin of the funds involved.

European Semester Winter Package

Quote from Sven Giegold MEP

The European Commission's has just published its European Semester 'winter package', which upgrades Greece's macroeconomic inequalities to "excessive", but leaves Germany with its previous assessment.

New EU blacklist successful tool to combat money laundering

Anti-Money Laundering

The European Commission has unveiled its 'blacklist' of 23 jurisdictions where there is a significant risk of money laundering. The list contains 'third country' jurisdictions and includes places such as the Bahamas, the US Virgin Islands, Panama and Saudi Arabia. The list will require all traders in the EU doing business in goods or services worth more than €10,000 in jurisdictions on the blacklist to undertake enhanced due diligence on transactions. The blacklist comes as a result of the EU's Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which is currently being ratified by Member States, and will see the Commission undertake enhanced assessments of the jurisdictions on the list.

Transparency International Corruption Index

Quote from Benedek Jávor MEP

Transparency International released their annual Corruption Perceptions Index, which showed that among others Hungary has slid in score considerably over the five years. Malta, Romania and Bulgaria have all slipped significantly in TI's rankings in the last year.

Vast differences in corporate tax rates across EU shows urgent need for transparency – new report

Tax

Today, a new report by the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament shows the privileges given to multinationals through low corporate tax rates across Europe. The report 'Effective Tax Rates of Multinational Enterprises in the EU' quantifies the difference between nominal and effective tax rates for multinationals in the EU. Effective tax rates in the European Union (15% on average) are well below nominal tax rates (23%). Multinationals may have an effective tax rate as low as 2% and as high as 30% across the EU.

Brexit and the future of tax havens

22.01.2019

The conference will address the UK’s role in financial secrecy services and the tools that the EU should mobilise to prevent the UK from evolving towards a tax haven on the EU’s doorstep. It will also assess the tax reforms that have been adopted in recent years at EU level and make recommendations to address the remaining loopholes in order to combat tax havens.

European Parliament supports greater cross-border cooperation between tax authorities

Fiscalis programme

The European Parliament has voted with a broad pro-European majority in favour of the Fiscalis programme for improving cross-border cooperation between tax authorities, which is part of the Multi-Financial-Framework (MFF) programmes currently being negotiated between the Parliament, Council and Commission.