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Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland vowed on Sunday (8 March) to protect their banking secrecy and speak with one voice to influence how the G20 group of nations cracks down on tax havens. But the Swiss also got unexpected support from the Czech EU Presidency on the issue.
The G20 holds a summit in April and tackling tax havens is on its agenda, but Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland, with their long-cherished banking secrecy rules, are not members of the group.
Switzerland recently came under fire after allowing Swiss bank UBS to disclose the identity of about 300 of its US clients to avert criminal charges that Swiss regulators said would put its existence at risk and hurt the economy (EurActiv 20/02/09).
Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz, who is also finance minister, said the creation of "blacklists" must be avoided when those such as Switzerland are not party to the talks.
"It is the aim of the Swiss government to avoid the automatic exchange of information because that would mean giving up banking secrecy," Merz told a news conference.
Separately, EU Tax Commissioner László Kovács has proposed that no EU country can use local bank secrecy laws to turn down a request for information exchange from other member states.
The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which represents richer countries, has a blacklist of countries that will not fully cooperate in tax evasion probes. The list includes Andorra, Monaco and Liechtenstein in Europe.
"The discussions that are taking place right now unfortunately take place in organisations of which our countries are not members, in particular the G20," Luxembourg's Treasury and Budget Minister Luc Frieden told a joint news conference with his Swiss and Austrian counterparts.
"We think it is unacceptable that among our European and American friends, we have not had the possibility to have a debate together," Frieden said.
EU finance ministers have also asked the European Commission to look at ways of dealing with "uncooperative" tax jurisdictions and how they could be censured.
"We demand to be part of the discussions where the criteria for the list of so-called uncooperative countries will be fixed," Frieden said.
Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg want to be "integrated" into the debate on tax havens "to find ways to maintain banking secrecy, while at the same time we are open to a dialogue on how to find ways to improve collaboration on tax offenses," he said.
Czechs as 'guardians of tradition'
Germany and France have pushed for Switzerland to be added to the blacklist, but Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg backed Switzerland's bank secrecy rules yesterday.
Schwarzenberg, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, told the Swiss NZZ am Sonntag newspaper that people should not try to "break" Swiss tradition.
"Certainly a couple of million euros escape one tax coffer or the other," the paper quoted Schwarzenberg as saying. "But the country's independence and the tradition of the autonomous and neutral Switzerland are to be valued higher," he further elaborated.
For his part, Austria's Finance Minister Josef Proell said banking secrecy was not the source of the financial crisis.
"We will also be mindful of some EU member states pushing against the boundaries, or even beyond, some of the fundamental principles of the EU freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital," Proell said.
"We should not discuss the savings tax directive and the directive on information exchange separately but in a package [...] there cannot be rash political decisions above our heads with great repercussions on the parties concerned," added Proell.
(EurActiv with Reuters)
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