EU urged to push UK harder on tackling tax avoidance and money laundering – FT

Financial Times – The EU is being urged to withhold legal permits allowing UK financial services companies easy access to the single market until Brussels gets tougher commitments from London to crack down on money laundering and tax avoidance. 

Green MEPs Philippe Lamberts, co-chair of the European Parliament’s green group, and Sven Giegold, economic policy spokesperson for the Greens/EFA group addressed this issue in a letter which was seen by the Finacial Times.

In the letter written to the European Commission they complained that the provisions in the EU-UK trade deal on financial transparency and corporate taxation are insufficiently stringent and urging Brussels to do more to hold the UK’s feet to the fire, saying that that the deal does too little to prevent the UK from embracing a “Singapore on Thames” model.