CARICOM expresses strong objection to EU black list

St. Lucia Times | The Caribbean Community, CARICOM, has expressed strong objection to the European Union (EU) labelling of some CARICOM states as non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.

Barbados, Grenada,St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago are on the list of 17 countries released on December 5.
CARICOM Secretary General, Irwin LaRocque has asserted that the decision by the EU has been based on new and unilaterally-determined criteria, that go beyond the generally accepted international tax transparency and accountability standards. LaRocque declared that CARICOM states have been diligently meeting those standards over the past several years.

He was at the time accrediting a new Ambassador of France to CARICOM, His Excellency Antoine Joly at the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana.

He noted that the countries of the region that are on the EU black list, have not been so labelled by the relevant regulatory authorities such as the Financial Action Task Force and the OECD Global Forum. He called on the EU to remove the blacklisted regional countries from “this pernicious list”, noting that the Community stood ready to discuss this matter with the European Council.

A major consequence of “blacklisting” was the “de-risking” strategies that included the withdrawal of correspondent banking services by certain international banks, the CARICOM Secretary-General added.
He said that it has had a “detrimental impact on the trade and financial operations” of the CARICOM region’s economies.