Luxembourg not to feature in tax haven "black list," diplomats say

Luxembourg not to feature in tax haven "black list," diplomats say Brussels - Neither Luxembourg nor any other European Union country will feature in a possible "black list" of tax havens to be drawn up at next month's Group of 20 summit in London, diplomats in Brussels said Thursday.

Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of the tiny but wealthy grand duchy, received assurances from fellow EU leaders during a summit in the Belgian capital that his country would not be singled out.

The bloc's heads of state and government were holding talks aimed at forging a common EU position ahead of the April 2 meeting of the world's 20 leading economies, which will only be attended by the most important European economies.

According to the latest available drafts of the Brussels summit's conclusions, leaders in London will want to "give priority to restoring the functioning of credit markets and facilitating the flow of lending to the economy."

They will also call on any form of protectionism to be avoided, and for world trade talks to reach an "ambitious and balanced" outcome.

Banks should in future build up enough capital to better face the bad times, while their managers should be dissuaded from taking excessive risks by weakening the link between company bonuses and short-term profitability.

Ahead of the meeting, Luxembourg and Austria had voiced concern at the inclusion in the text of a paragraph urging stronger efforts to fight tax evasion.

This calls on the G20 to "protect the financial system from non- transparent, non-cooperative and loosely regulated jurisdictions, including off-shore centres."

It also requests "the listing of such jurisdictions" and a toolbox for applying sanctions against them.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) includes Austria and Switzerland in its list of uncooperative states, and Luxembourg had feared being added to such a list.

EU members Austria, Luxembourg and Belgium all retain some form of bank secrecy rules.

While in Brussels, the bloc's leaders were also expected to agree on the need to double to 500 billion dollars the resources available to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said at the start of the talks that the EU "will try to put on the table around 75 billion dollars" in additional resources. (dpa)

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