MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gibraltar “nothing to fear” from tougher EU controls

As European Union leaders met over the weekend in Berlin ahead of the G20 summit in April, Gibraltar Chief Minister Peter Caruana has welcomed the call for a tightening of regulatory standards, transparency and co-operation of financial markets on a global basis.

Against the backdrop of the current economic crisis, the talks are aimed at greater cooperation on international financial regulation systems, and included plans for the setting up of cross-border bodies for the supervision of financial institutions, and a crackdown on tax havens. The Chief Minister said: "Gibraltar, which already operates to EU standards on all of these, as well as taxation matters, has nothing to fear (and much to gain) from this". Asked to comment how this tied in with the local Government's offer to Spain to open the finance centre to scrutiny, Mr Caruana said Gibraltar has offered Spain "in the context of the Trilateral Forum, and others in a wider context, a full and normal measure of European co-operation and an exchange of information agreement".