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CURRENT STATUS OF THE FIGHT AGAINST TAX HAVENS IN EUROPE
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policies were prejudicial both to other Member
States and to third-party countries in a variety of
way. It is very significant that the Commission
has decided to combat unfair tax competition
itself and not to leave this function solely in the
hands of the Code of Conduct Group. And it is
also noteworthy that indicators such as the eval-
uation of aggressive tax measures in Member
States have been included in the country reports
drawn up under the European Semester frame-
work. We hope that these moves – which are
necessary but not sufficient – will finally lead to
the ECOFIN criteria being applied not just to
third-party countries but also to Member States.
The process of listing territories: the
blacklist and grey list of tax havens
The European black and grey lists have been the
result of a lengthy process involving several
stages. Following a pre-selection by the
Commission, 92 jurisdictions were selected to
participate in the screening process, which took
place over the course of 2017. In the first in-
stance, a group of national experts was asked to
evaluate the tax systems of these countries in
accordance with the criteria described above.
The outcome of these evaluations was then
transmitted to the Code of Conduct Group. Of
the initial 92, twenty passed the first stage of
the evaluation and the remaining 72 were asked
to address a series of reforms relating to various
deficiencies that had been identified.
This was the start of a dialogue between the
Group and the jurisdictions concerned, at the
end of which – following several stages of ex-
changes and correspondence between the par-
ties – both a blacklist and a grey list of tax ha-
vens were compiled. The Group presented these
lists to ECOFIN December 2017 for ratification.
The jurisdictions which, according to the Group,
had made a sufficient commitment to imple-
ment the tax reforms required within the speci-
fied timescale were included in the grey list (47),
while those that had not made such a commit-
ment were included in the blacklist (17).
However, these initial lists are not static.
They can be updated at any time (and at least
once a year) depending on whether the territo-
ries are deemed to be in compliance with their
commitments. Territories may be included in or
removed from the lists or may be transferred
from one list to another in accordance with the
procedure described above, by which the group
of national experts recommends a change of
status for a given territory and the Code of
Conduct Group takes the final decision, which
is then ratified by ECOFIN.
Several changes have already been made to
both lists during the period since their publica-
tion. The first occurred at ECOFIN January,
which ratified the transfer of eight territories
from the blacklist to the grey list. The second
occurred at ECOFIN March, with the inclusion of
three territories on the blacklist and five on the
grey list. These changes were due to the deci-
sion to extend the final evaluation of these ter-
ritories – which had been particularly hard hit by
Hurricane Irma – until February, giving them ad-
ditional time to present their reform proposals.
As a result, there are currently only six jurisdic-
tions on the blacklist.
Overall, the blacklist is very weak, and only
includes small territories and developing coun-
tries with minor impact on the tax evasion and
avoidance industry. This is in contrast with the
grey list, which is much broader and contains
several of the most important tax havens, glob-
ally. The success of progress will therefore de-
pend on whether, faced with the threat of inclu-
sion in the blacklist, these grey-listed jurisdictions