During his visit to Paris, President José Raúl Mulino gave as a deadline until mid-2025 for the EU to remove Panama from the list.
Panama’s president, José Raúl Molino, threatened Tuesday to veto EU companies of future tenders in his country if the European bloc does not remove him from its list of tax havens.
“Panama will not allow any country that keeps us on that list to participate in the international tenders that we have from next year,” Mulino warned at the end of his official visit to France.
In an interview given from a Parisian hotel to three media outlets, including EFE, Mulino gave as a deadline for the EU to remove Panama from the list until the middle of 2025 and said that, for the time being, this reprisal that is considering to be adopted is already quite – hard.
The main tender at stake is the railway track of about 400 kilometers between the capital, Panama City, and David, next to the border with Costa Rica, for an estimated amount of at least $4 billion. China has already shown an interest in building this infrastructure.
Of his visit to Paris, the Panamanian head of state welcomed the support received by French President Emmanuel Macron – a favourite to exclude the Central American country from that list – but harshly criticized both the OECD, a multilateral body that brings together several of the richest countries in the world, and the EU.
We are in a whole process of lobbying to be able to tell our truth, to see it with figures and to be able to tell Europe and the OECD that they lie about Panama’s status as a country.
The president argued that his nation is not sponsoring money laundering – and pointed out that, since assuming the Panamanian presidency on July 1, they have responded promptly to requests to the financial authorities of his country.
Perhaps we enter those lists (of tax haven) for the reluctance (of the previous administration) to give information. For the reasons they had, they didn’t give it or give it too late (…) Of 48 requests, we have responded on time 45 euros, he said.
Although Panama left the grey list of the International Financial Action Task Force (EGFI) in October 2023, it remains on the European Union’s list.
Mulino pointed to the European Parliament as the main obstacle. “For reasons I don’t know, there was no vote in favor of Panama months ago,” he lamented.
To pave the way in the Eurocamera, the Foreign Minister, Javier Martínez-Acha, will travel this Wednesday to Bordeaux (southwest of France) to meet with French MEPs from the Renew Group and the European People’s Party.
The Panamanian president insisted on defending his country’s international reputation, badly affected by the scandal of offshore companies known as the Panama Papers of 2016.
Is Panama cooperating in what can cooperate and it is not true that we are a country to be stigmatized in the way they have done (…) “We will do what we have to do in order to be able to dignify our name and cleanse our image here in Europe and where appropriate,” he said.
This article has been translated after first appearing in La Estrella