The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY General Ryan Pinder said The Bahamas would be removed from the European Union’s blacklist in November.

In the Senate yesterday, he supported Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis’ remark that the criteria to blacklist the country was “unfairly applied to us”.

“As we know, the financial services industry is an industry that is highly competitive where our competitors are always looking for an advantage over us, where the goalposts move on a continual basis,” Mr Pinder said.

“It is an industry where we have foreign governments and multilateral institutions doing what they can to discredit our jurisdiction and to cause for what I call inequitable determinations, blacklists, and other opinions that they may have about us even though we are a country who achieves greater things than them, who has better compliance regimes than them, and who have better innovation than them.”

“The prime minister also was able to give a convincing argument on how the activities of countries and multilateral organisations like the European Union through their discriminatory treatment of countries like The Bahamas in financial services matters has a direct adverse implication on the climate crisis affects on small island developing states.”

Mr Pinder said the country cannot recover and rebuild in the face of the climate crisis if the European Union’s penalties affect the basic “tenants of reinsurance and insurance” in this country.

“Things have to change,” he said. “There has to be a holistic view on how this treatment by big economies who cause climate crisis and discriminate against us in the financial services industry affect us small countries.”

“It’s unfair, and one thing that this government will do in the face of the big boys in the room, we will punch above our weight. We will make our case known at the highest levels and we will solicit the support of our colleagues, both in the region and worldwide to demonstrate that we are equal to them and we should be treated as such.”

The Bahamas was returned to the EU blacklist last year. The EU said it is concerned the country attracts profits without real activity, noting there is no corporate income tax here.