Barbados has been blacklisted by the European Union (EU), and faces the threat of “sanctions”, including reduced funding. The EU Council yesterday announced it was adding Barbados to its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, having assigned the country, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Marshall Islands to a grey list a year ago “following commitments they had taken”.

“Barbados has replaced a harmful preferential tax regime by a measure of similar effect and did not commit to amend or abolish it by the end of 2019,” the Europeans asserted. In addition to Barbados, UAE and Marshal Islands, the revised EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes now includes Aruba, Belize, Bermuda, Dominica, Fiji, Oman and Vanuatu. The EU claimed these jurisdictions “did not implement the commitments they had made to the EU by the agreed deadline”. Based on what the EU outlined yesterday in a four-page “fact sheet”, Barbados and other blacklisted countries now faced the imposition of measures “which will ensure that the EU list has a real impact”.(Barbados Nation)…[+]