Austria defied growing pressure to follow Luxembourg in ending bank secrecy, after a group led by Europe's six biggest countries pledged to work together to tackle tax havens.
The finance ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland announced their desire to push jointly for more bank transparency, a message they will take to the meeting of the Group of 20. Three other countries - Belgium, the Netherlands and Romania - joined the initiative, the European Commission's official in charge of tax policy, Algirdas Semeta said.
Poland's finance minister told Reuters that he joined the group to ensure foreign multinationals do not abuse tax regimes for profit. Such companies are particularly important for central and eastern Europe. "The scale of the problem is smaller in Poland than in western Europe but some of the techniques used in western Europe to evade taxes are being transferred to Poland too", Jacek Rostowski said. "Citizens must have full confidence that the system is not being abused to evade taxes or for simply for tax fraud", he said. "The fight with tax fraud will be all the more effective if it is conducted on a European and even global level - that's why we joined."
Announcing the cooperation, George Osborne, Britain's finance minister, had said he was pushing for more transparency from the UK overseas territories of the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands.
The announcement adds to pressure on Vienna to sign up to EU rules for the automatic exchange of information on bank depositors. It follows Luxembourg's decision this week to share foreign bank account details with EU governments from 2015, bringing it into line with all other Member States bar one - Austria.
Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter stuck to her earlier position, dismissing such an exchange of information as an invasion of privacy. "We will fight for bank secrecy. We are no tax haven", Fekter told reporters, placing her country in a minority of one during discussions on the issue among 27 EU ministers. She defended Austria's practice of imposing tax on interest paid to foreign savers, money collected and returned to their home country's government - but with no names attached. The European Union wants information about accounts to be given.
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