The EU Parliamentary Greens – EFA party Vice President Ska Keller held a press conference this evening, just ahead of her meeting with Prime Minster Joseph Muscat tomorrow, and said that the Panama Papers is an embarrassment for Malta.

Mrs Keller is here with the EU Parliamentary delegation to discuss Malta’s EU Presidency programme, and to attend the conference of Presidents which will take place in Malta tomorrow.

During her one-on-one meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow, she will bring up the issue of tax justice, and expressed her hopes that the Maltese government will take up this cause.

“It hasn’t helped Malta’s reputation that the Maltese government is featuring in the panama papers, through a minister and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff,” she explained while arguing that taking up the fight for tax justice can help repair Malta’s reputation.

Mrs Keller added that Malta is in the top five EU countries where tax avoidance occurs.

She explained that her party, the Greens, had submitted a report to the EU Parliament on tax avoidance, and presented the media with a report about a specific German chemical company called BASF, which she said has an office here in Malta. She said that BASF has avoided hundreds of millions of euros in tax worldwide.

Mrs Keller said that BASF’s office in Malta was setup to lend money to other BASF offices around the globe, and would receive the money back with interest. "Instead of paying taxes on that, they receive a tax refund".

The Greens Vice President believes that Malta, during its Presidency, should bring the idea of transparency forward and said that it is time for companies to report to countries about the number of their employees, their earnings etc.

She also announced that come next January, the Greens will publish a special report on tax avoidance in Malta.

Using the example of Apple in Ireland, she said that the Commission ruled that Apple should pay Ireland a lot of money, “yet Ireland filed a lawsuit arguing against this, all due to this weird notion that the Irish economy would benefit from that. This is wrong. If you have a healthy economy, then they will pay taxes. We have SMEs paying higher rates than multi-national companies”.

Alternattiva Demokratika Chairperson Arnold Cassola said that in Malta, the macro-economy is doing well yet then 27% of the population is at risk of poverty.

He believes that dodging taxes is unethical. “It is also unethical for multi-national companies to not pay taxes where they should be paying them”.

“It is logical for companies to pay taxes where the profit is made,” he said,.