Malta chairs ‘awkward’ EU talks on tax dodging

Malta has again rejected accusations that it was a tax haven, a few days after the publication of the socalled Malta Files, which shed light on its sweetheart tax deals for companies and individuals.

Maltese finance minister Edward Scicluna told journalists in Brussels on Tuesday that "there are no offshore companies in the EU", Eric Maurice reported on EUObserver.

He said that revelations by the European Investigative Collaborations, a network of European media, were "just a combination of stories that tried to damage [Malta's] reputation".

The minister, who last Sunday said that the Malta Files were "fake news", said on Tuesday that they contained nothing new because "you don't leak public data which is freely available online".

He did not say whether his allegation of “fake news" referred to the contents of the files published or to the subsequent comments that Malta was a tax haven.

Scicluna spoke after having chaired a meeting of EU finance ministers that dealt mainly with tax issues in Malta’s role as the current EU presidency.

"It's not by lynching in public and making quite exciting stories" that the EU will fight tax evasion, he said.

"All member states expressed the wish to continue fighting tax avoidance and tax evasion," he added.

"You do that by serious work, leg- islative work, and cooperation," he said.

He also stressed his government's commitment to making progress on EU-level laws to end tax avoidance by companies and individuals.