We hear you: EU ‘listening to concerns’ about blacklisting

A top European Union (EU) diplomat is assuring Barbados and the rest of the region that the 28-member grouping is listening to their concerns about blacklisting.

However, while European External Action Service Head of Division for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Aldo Dell’Ariccia said the EU would do all it could to help keep countries off any such lists, he offered no guarantees that it would no longer place any more such embargoes on regional states.

In fact, Dell’Ariccia would only assure journalists on a media familiarisation tour of the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium that the political and economic union would ensure “maximum possible clarity so countries are not blamed while on the other hand they are doing all in order to be transparent and respect the norms” of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), even as he said his organization would not intervene directly on such matters.

The EU itself has been guilty of placing Barbados and other regional states on blacklists of tax havens, much to the dismay and frustration of Caribbean leaders.

Read more at: Barbados Today