EU Blacklist

[discovolante]

Inspired by my own post here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1883#p57229 I thought I'd start the thread I never got round to before.

I listened to a podcast episode on The David McWilliams podcast a few weeks ago, here: https://play.acast.com/s/the-david-mcwi ... blacklists where he had a guest, Marla Dukharan, who is a Caribbean economist. She talks about an EU 'blacklist' of countries that it considers to pose a financial threat due to money laundering etc, but whose combined economic activity is currently so low that, she argues, any threat posed is minimal. She also argues that the list is unnecessary (she compares it to OECD measurements), discriminatory, hypocritical (these countries are targeted but other predominantly white countries that have money laundering problems aren't, and of course no EU countries are in it) and unjustified, and prevents these countries from properly participating in the economy.

She has a Twitter thread with several links here: https://twitter.com/Marladukharan/statu ... 6805633032 and an FT article here: https://www.ft.com/content/a9f8ad3e-55f ... 8bae5adb37

The podcast interview is kind of interesting because she implies that the real motivation behind the blacklist, or at least part of the motivation, is to punish countries using low tax regimes to attract investment. She is talking to an Irish economist and they discuss the fact that Ireland has benefited from low corporate tax rates and yet the EU allows that to happen, and they compare the history of Irish oppression with other colonised countries and draw a few parallels.