After the Pandora Papers the chairman of the Christian Democrats in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, called for the EU to have more powers against tax havens. In the fight against tax avoidance, tax evasion and black money laundering, the EU has not made enough progress, criticized the deputy CSU chairman in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”.
Europe needs more skills to enforce the law. “We need a kind of European FBI, a European field of competence for our investigative authorities.” Europol must be developed into a kind of tax authority. There must also be sanction options for tax havens that are on black lists. It needs “clear sanctions against the countries in which these tax fraud models are used”. The countries that did not cooperate with the local tax authorities should no longer have access to the euro financial area or visa access to Europe. “We have to step up a gear.”
An international research network in which the Southgerman newspaper contributes, had published information that should show that hundreds of politicians and officials from around the world have hidden funds in tax havens. The “Pandora Papers” were leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) from an anonymous source. Among others, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and others are mentioned in the documents People close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.