Austrian politicians agree on easing banking secrecy law
(VIENNA) - Austria's finance minister said Wednesday key political factions reached an agreement on easing banking secrecy laws in the last European Union country on the OECD "gray list" of tax havens.
The ruling coalition conservatives and Social Democrats along with the opposition Greens agreed to adopt a law requiring international administrative cooperation, which now must be voted on by parliament on September 1.
"I am very satisfied that we were able to avoid any serious economic consequences for Austria," Finance Minister Josef Proell said of the accord, adding that the law must be adopted quickly to get off the "gray list".
In an international crackdown on tax havens, leaders from the Group of 20 countries at an April summit in London endorsed a three-tier list categorising tax havens and financial centres by their degree of cooperation.
Some 38 countries, including Austria, were placed in the middle tier of nations that have adopted the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's standards on exchanging tax information but not yet "substantially" implemented them.
To avoid the label as a tax haven, Austria has said it would ease rules where there is "justified suspicion" of wrongdoing.
Until now, Austria has only supplied such information if criminal procedures have been launched against an individual and a court order has been issued.
But in July the Austrian parliament failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to change the law, and it is now under threat of new sanctions from the G20 which holds its next summit in late September in the US city of Pittsburgh.
On August 20, the European Investment Bank -- the EU's financial arm -- warned Austria that its banks risked being penalised if the country maintained its current banking secrecy policy after March next year, including being barred from jointly financed projects with the EIB.
Other EU members, Belgium and Luxembourg, have already revised their banking secrecy laws and been removed from the OECD list.
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