This archive report was first published on 4 October 2019.
On October 4, 2019, the European Union (EU) announced plans to remove Switzerland from its grey list of tax havens.
The move, which will become effective if finance ministers from all 28 EU member states adopt it unanimously in a meeting in Luxembourg next Thursday, comes after Switzerland adopted and published the necessary reforms in the EU Official Journal.
Switzerland has been included on the grey list since its launch in December 2017, as the country was deemed to have inadequate tax rules but committed to reforming them.
According to a document obtained by AFP, the EU will also remove Albania, Costa Rica, Mauritius, and Serbia from the grey list, while the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands will be struck from the black list of tax havens.
This would leave only nine countries or territories considered to be uncooperative on the list: American Samoa, Belize, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu.
The EU drew up the lists in the hopes of prodding countries to better combat tax evasion by multinationals and wealthy individuals, following several scandals including the Panama Papers and LuxLeaks.
Blacklisted countries face limited sanctions, consisting of freezing them out of European aid or development funding.
