Panama to be taken off the tax haven blacklist

The European Union is preparing to remove Panama from their blacklist of tax havens along with seven other countries.

"Barring last-minute changes, EU finance ministers should withdraw eight countries from the blacklist of tax havens in the EU" next Tuesday, a source explained to AFP, stating that the matter should be adopted without discussions.

The finance chiefs of the block included at the beginning of December, 17 countries on their first black list of tax havens and that, in case of non cooperation with the Europe, could be targeted for sanctions.

Together with Panama are South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Mongolia, Macao, Grenada and Barbados will be removed from this list of non-cooperative jurisdictions by "submitting commitments", which were "evaluated by the experts," he said.

The Caribbean Santa Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Bahrain, Guam, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Samoa, American Samoa and Namibia, will continue to be on the blacklist,.

"The fact that countries enter into conformity shows that the list works," a European diplomatic source told AFP.