Press conference by Werner LANGEN (EPP, DE), Chair of the PANA Committee, Jeppe KOFOD (S&amp;D, DK), and Petr JEŽEK (ALDE, CZ), co-rapporteurs, on the Presentation of the work programme of the Inquiry Committee on Panama Papers, in the EP in Brussels. Statements by Werner LANGEN (EPP, DE), Chair of the Panama Papers Inquiry Committee, Jeppe KOFOD (S&amp;D, DK), rapporteur,&nbsp; and Petr JEŽEK (ALDE, CZ), rapporteur.

Brussels

press conference

KOFOD, Jeppe (S&D, DK)

fight against tax fraud and evasion (T)

Panama Papers inquiry committee

LANGEN, Werner (EPP, DE)

JEŽEK, Petr (ALDE, CZ)

Presentation of the work programme of the Inquiry Committee on Panama Papers: extracts from the press conference by Werner LANGEN (EPP, DE), Chair of the PANA Committee, Jeppe KOFOD (S&D, DK), and Petr JEŽEK (ALDE, CZ), co-rapporteurs

SOUNDBITE (German), Werner LANGEN (EPP, DE), Chair of the Panama Papers Inquiry Committee, The Panama leaks, as I&rsquo;ve said at the beginning, on Neelie Kroes, former member of the Commission , she spent 5 years as a Competition Commissioner, and she has been involved as well as a director of one of these companies. In 10 years since she has acted as a Dutch transport minister and as a Commissioner and in the mean time she was director and chair of a 37 different companies, as she said at the time in the hearing in 2004, she said that she had given up all those positions, but is now come out that she was a Director of a Panama company.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeppe KOFOD (S&amp;D, DK), rapporteur, I think the task is massive, is because we have to disrupt the business model , a system out there, where we, many European countries in one way or the other we are also involved in that. We have seen in the panama papers the lack of some of our biggest banks in Europe to actually commit to the legislating that we have, to obey the legislation that we have in Europe . We&rsquo;ve seen that countries in Europe also need to have clear legislation to insure that we can see who is ultimate beneficial, the owner, of the company, or trust, or foundation, etc,

SOUNDBITE (English), Petr JE&#381;EK (ALDE, CZ), rapporteur, I can imagine that there will be a great opposition form those who benefit from this shabby schemes. We&rsquo;ve already heard today that in some member state is difficult for journalists to get information from tax authorities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petr JE&#381;EK (ALDE, CZ), Brexit cast is scheduled, there it was reminded that the UK companies are quite involved, especially in the British Virgin Islands jurisdiction, and there is a link to the City of London, there were also talks about money laundering, and requires for more transparency which is of course, the remedy in general : more transparency;, more cooperation, more information sharing.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeppe KOFOD (S&amp;D, DK), We sow in some member states, I mention, that, Luxembourg, the case of Luxleaks , that some of thewhistle-blowersjournalist were trialled, and I think that is a disgrace. We need to encourage people that know about these illegal activities there to come forward. I think it is an important part of destroying this business model behind tax heavens and secrecy that we&rsquo;ve seen that can be used for tax dodging, money laundering and so on . The important way is to get to people that know about this, get them to come out with this information , and than make our law enforcement (effective) , and take action on this. Sowhistle-blowersprotection is very important. Today I think , unfortunately there is no sufficient incentive to come out with this information, and it&rsquo;s really a pity, so Europe needs to act, and it needs to act now.