Google – AFP, 10 April 2013
 |
Spanish
coal miners demonstrate with their lamps lit through the streets
of the city of
Leon, Spain, on June 12, 2012 (AFP/File, Cesar Manso)
|
BRUSSELS —
EU legislators struck an anti-corruption deal Tuesday that aims to force big
mining companies to make public the payments they make to governments where
they operate, officials said.
Bargaining
between EU member states and European Parliament MEPs delivered the deal
focused on companies with turnovers of at least 40 million euros, total assets
worth 20 million or 250 employees, European Union Markets Commissioner Michel
Barnier said in a statement.
The
agreement covers "disclosure requirements for the extractive industry and
loggers of primary forests and on simpler accounting requirements for small
companies."
Barnier, a
former French foreign minister, said the extractive business was "far too
often shrouded in secrecy", and that the new legislation would therefore
"help fight tax evasion and corruption."
It
"shows how EU legislation can be a catalyst for change in developing
countries," he added, arguing that communities in resource-rich
territories "will finally be better informed about what their governments
are being paid by multinationals for exploiting oil and gas fields, mineral
deposits and forests."
The Oxfam
charity, which campaigns on behalf of developing countries, said the accord was
to be welcomed.
"It's
excellent news that the EU is moving towards a law that will help ordinary
people harness the natural resource wealth of their countries to be lifted out
of poverty," said Catherine Olier, Oxfam's EU development expert.
But at the
same time, the "EU politicians today could have taken a bolder stance
against tax evasion and corruption by including other sectors such as
telecommunications or construction," Olier said in a statement.
"Strikingly,
poor countries lose more to tax dodging than they receive in aid each
year."
The accord
must now go to be approved by the 27 EU member states.
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