Regional Cooperation and Trade Support team leader at the European Union (EU) Delegation in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Felipe de la Mota, is fending off strong regional criticism of the EU’s recent blacklisting of jurisdictions.
Speaking at a virtual panel discussion hosted by University of the West Indies and European University Institute yesterday, the EU official argued that there have been a lot of misconceptions surrounding the blacklisting issue which needed to be ironed out.
Acknowledging that the timing of the blacklisting was unfortunate, given that it coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, de la Mota argued that this timeline was set a while ago by the Global Forum.
“The timing for conformity for non-compliant tax jurisdictions was set by the Global Forum itself in April and the EU listing merely reflected that inevitably. It is of course ready to continually assess the progress and take countries off the list when the Global Forum deems it so. So ultimately it is a question of a lot of misconceptions around who is putting together these lists and when and why. COVID of course had nothing to do with it, a bit of unfortunate timing maybe,” he said.
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