> Inicio

New European Parliament resolution calls on the European Union to tackle capital flight and tax havens.

28 January 2010

by Marta Ruiz

A new European Parliament resolution on the revision of the "Cotonou Agreement" was adopted on the 20th January and contains specific proposals to address some concerns that Civil Society Organisations have also raised in the past regarding European Investment Bank (EIB) lending. It also calls for binding country by country reporting standards for transnational corporations. Some of these key demands:

14.  Call on the EIB to review its policy on offshore financial centres on the basis of more stringent criteria than the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) listing for the definition of prohibited and monitored jurisdictions, and to ensure its implementation and provide annual reports on progress;

15.  Consider that structural changes in the EIB's organisational and governance structure is necessary in order to ensure fulfilment of its development obligations in the context of the current review of the Cotonou Agreement and the ongoing mid-term review and renewal of the EIB's external lending mandate;

16.  Call on the Commission and ACP governments to include the fight against abuses of tax havens, tax evasion and illicit capital flight as a matter of priority in the Cotonou Agreement; calls therefore for an international binding mechanism, which forces all transnational corporations to disclose automatically the profits made and the taxes paid in every country where they operate;

17.  Call on the negotiators to address the tax-related aspect of development and to put in place effective and viable tax systems in the ACP countries in order to ensure sustainable source of development financing with the long-term objective of replacing foreign aid dependency; calls on the negotiators in this context to include in Article 9.3 of the ACP-EU agreement, concerning the proper management of public affairs, the principle of good fiscal governance;

Read the full text here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2010-0004+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN