The European Union has included Russia, as well as the British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica and the Marshall Islands, on its blacklist of tax havens.
This is stated in the message of the Council of the EU.
The blacklist of "non-cooperative jurisdictions" now includes 16 countries and territories.
The EU blacklist was created in 2017 to fight massive tax evasion and is regularly updated.
The Council regrets that these jurisdictions do not cooperate in tax matters and suggests that they improve their legal framework in order to solve the identified problems.
"Today, we decided to add four jurisdictions to the list of EU jurisdictions that do not cooperate in tax matters: the British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, the Marshall Islands and Russia. We ask all the listed countries to improve their legal framework and work on compliance with international standards. At the same time, I I sincerely congratulate North Macedonia, Barbados, Jamaica and Uruguay on the fact that they have successfully fulfilled their obligations and can be removed from the document," said Elisabeth Svantesson, Minister of Finance of Sweden, which presides over the EU Council.
Russia was added to the list after the Code of Conduct team reviewed new Russian legislation adopted in 2022 against the Code's good governance criteria and found that Russia had failed to meet its commitment to eliminate harmful aspects of the special treatment for international holding companies. In addition, the dialogue with Russia on issues related to taxation has reached a dead end after the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
In 2017, the EU created a blacklist of jurisdictions and countries that refuse to cooperate and encourage abusive tax practices.