St Kitts and Nevis Foreign Affairs Minister, Mark Brantley
By Ken Richards
BASSETERRE, St Kitts (WINN) — St Kitts and Nevis wasn’t blacklisted by the European Union in a revised blacklist for tax havens outside the EU last month; however, that hasn’t stopped foreign affairs minister Mark Brantley denouncing what he considers unfair targeting of Caribbean countries.
Regional states on the list included Aruba, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands.
Brantley has strong words for the EU, labelling the blacklisting as a process intended to do irreparable harm to those targeted.
“Even though we weren’t blacklisted, I have said publicly, and I continue to say that there is no joy in my mind because Barbados, Dominica, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago all of these countries which are our CARICOM brothers and sisters have been blacklisted. It is a process which we think is opaque, a process which is unfair, a process that is calculated to do irreparable harm to these small countries and small jurisdictions and it is a process that we feel is on the wrong trajectory that it would be better for the EU to engage in dialogue, to seek to assist if there are legitimate areas of concern,” he said.
The foreign affairs minister is against the European Union issuing directives and deadlines to sovereign nations and urges dialogue between the EU and those countries it feels are guilty of harmful tax practices.
