Oxfam-Eurodad reaction to EU deal on transparency of extractives industries

The European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU struck last night a deal on transparency of extractives industries.

The agreement will be adopted by the Parliament and the Council in the coming months.

If passed, this law will oblige EU-listed and non-listed big oil, gas, mining firms and the logging industry to declare payments they make in resource-rich nations.

In response to today’s developments, Catherine Olier, Oxfam’s EU development expert, said:

“It’s excellent news that the EU is moving towards a law that will help ordinary people harness the natural resource wealth of their countries to be lifted out of poverty. But EU politicians today could have taken a bolder stance against tax evasion and corruption by including other sectors such as telecommunications or construction. Strikingly, poor countries lose more to tax dodging than they receive in aid each year.”

Øygunn Sundsbø Brynildsen, senior policy officer at Eurodad, the European Network on Debt and Development, said:

“Despite today’s promising progress, there is still a long way to go to have EU legislation that properly fights tax dodging. While it is very important to know how much companies pay to governments, this figure alone does not give a clear picture of whether they pay their fair share of taxes. Multinationals will continue plundering developing countries until they are obliged to report information such as sales volumes, assets, staffing and profits. The currently negotiated EU banking sector reform is an example to follow in this regard.”