The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Recently, the European Union has ratified the blacklisting of the Bahamas for the failure of maintaining tax compliance for the regulatory bodies in Europe. However, the Bahamas has been largely compliant for decades and the EU still decides to blacklist the country during the recent United Nations general assembly.

Originally, the agreements between the Bahamas and the EU were to ensure fair financial regulations and to prevent terrorists and drug trafficking organisations from using offshore banks as a means of laundering money for illegal activities. On paper, this would be an excellent idea to root out bad actors from the banking sector and to further grow our relationship with Europe. In reality, it's the total opposite.

The Bahamas has been completely compliant with everything the European Union has asked us to do and yet they continuously change the goalposts every few years. Worse, countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg and certain German banks have been operating with lax financial compliance for years and yet they're not blacklisted while the Bahamian financial sector is getting decimated by nonsensical regulations, which are dangerously close to being racially discriminatory as it can get while maintaining a supposedly fair image.

Apparently, all of our KYC (Know your Customer) changes and progress on financial regulations we've made over the last decade has been effectively nullified by the recent blacklist. This cannot stand, because the Bahamas has lost its position in the international financial service industry due to the constant "regulations" made by the EU for countries like the Bahamas.

Now it would be a good time for Prime Minister Davis and his administration to seek out answers from Ursula von der Leyen and the rest of the EU. If the organisation is to maintain any good standing with the Bahamas and the Caribbean, then it must enforce fair conduct with all of its member states and other nations who are active participants in the financial services.

If they persist in nonsensical regulations designed to hurt the Bahamas and other Caribbean nations, show favoritism with certain nations over others and use blacklists as economic weapons, then the Bahamas will have to refuse any further compliance from European financial institutions and render the agreements null and void. As much as we want to remain on the good side of our allies, if protecting our secondary industry requires to go to extreme measures, then so be it.

AMMAKA RUSSELL

Nassau,

October 6, 2022.