Austria and Luxembourg are preparing to ease longstanding and controversial bank secrecy rules, allowing other EU member states access to their depositors’ account details amid mounting pressure to crack down on tax evasion in Europe.
Werner Faymann, Austria’s chancellor, said the country was ready to talk about providing details on EU citizens with offshore accounts in the country, although he insisted details about Austrian depositors would remain private. “We are prepared to negotiate about automatic data-exchange concerning the accounts of foreigners in Austria that has been requested by the EU”, he said.
Luc Frieden, Luxembourg’s finance minister, said the EU’s second smallest state would discuss easing banking secrecy rules and enhancing co-operation with other EU tax authorities to fight evasion. He said that plans to share details of Luxembourg-based depositors were “under consideration” by the government. "The Grand Duchy no longer strictly rejects easing banking secrecy rules. Luxembourg does not rely on clients who want to save tax”.
Austria and Luxembourg are the only countries among the bloc’s 27 member states that have refused automatic exchange of information about depositors. They are now seeking to protect the reputation of their financial service sectors by indicating their willingness to be more open over depositor information. “I very much welcome Luxembourg’s new openness to automatic exchange of information, even if it is long overdue”, said Algirdas Šemeta, EU commissioner for taxation.
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