MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Austria keeps to bank secrecy and demands UK and US shed light on their tax havens

Ms Fekter argued that automatic exchange of information involves a massive interference in people’s privacy rights

Austria vowed to stick to its bank secrecy laws, defying renewed pressure to follow Luxembourg in revealing information on European Union depositors and criticized the United States and Britain for permitting tax havens.

“Great Britain has many money laundering centres and tax havens in its immediate legal remit: the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands, Virgin Islands” said Austrian Finance minister Maria Fekter, who has pledged “to fight as a lion” to defend her country's banking rules.

“These are all hot spots for tax evasion and money laundering” she said, adding the standard imposed on Cyprus should be applied across Europe in the fight against tax havens.

The issue of tax havens and bank secrecy was a last-minute addition to the agenda of informal talks of European Union finance ministers in Dublin. Austria is a minority of one in defending its right to keep secrecy.

“Austria is sticking to bank secrecy” Fekter, told reporters adding she did not believe an automatic exchange of information was needed, as is accepted in other EU countries, and that such a step would be an invasion of privacy rights.

“Automatic exchange of information involves a massive interference in people’s privacy rights. Here the state sniffs around deep into the private affairs of account holders” Fekter underlined to her fellow peers in Dublin.

The ministers’ meeting follows Luxembourg’s decision to share foreign bank account details with EU governments from 2015, bringing it into line with all other countries in the bloc bar one: Austria.

”I can even report a success” Fekter told the Oesterreich paper on her return to Vienna, because her counter-call to shed more light on opaque offshore trusts elsewhere was now part of an initiative by big EU countries to crack down on cross-border tax cheats.
She became the star of the EU finance ministers' talks in Dublin over the weekend, single-handedly shaping the debate.