The Council of the European Union removed the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands from its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions following an Oct. 10 meeting.
The EU said both the UAE and the Marshall Islands passed the necessary reforms to implement measures to improve their tax policy framework. The UAE is now fully compliant with the bloc's tax cooperation commitments, while the Marshall Islands will be moved to a grey list where its tax policies and reforms will continue to be monitored.
Meanwhile, the EU found Albania, Costa Rica, Mauritius, Serbia and Switzerland to be compliant with all commitments on tax cooperation and removed them from the grey list.
In December 2017, the EU set up a blacklist and a grey list of tax havens following revelations of prevalent tax avoidance schemes used by corporations and wealthy individuals.
American Samoa, Belize, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Vanuatu remain on the blacklist. The EU will continue to update its list in 2019.
