The revelations of the "The Organized crime and corruption reporting project" (OCCRP) reveals that within Europe, billionaires are still able to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. The rules that allow this to happen are not difficult to fix but require our governments to take on the very rich.

The scandal is particularly pertinent because is reveals how the European Union is happy to denounce harmful tax practices in third countries, but not to recognize that several of its member states are tax havens.

By allowing this to continue, the EU accepts that most member states lose billions in tax revenues to shameless European jurisdictions who claim solidarity with their neighbours when it suits them.

Every year, in addition to Luxembourg, the Netherlands steals the equivalent of $10 billion from its EU neighbors. Ireland, Cyprus and Malta have similar practices. Most of these losses comes from countries hit hardest by COVID such as Italy, Spain, France and Germany.

PSIs ground breaking study, The State of Tax Justice, shows that globally States lose more than 427 billion US dollars to tax havens – the equivalent of 34 million nurses salaries – or one nurses salary every second.

Unless we can take back control of the tax system then the costs of fighting COVID and the economic stimulus measures will fall on workers and disadvantaged groups and countries, making another round of devastating austerity, public sector cuts and privatisations likely.

PSI calls on all European countries to work together to put an end to tax competition and tax avoidance and to give back to all states the precious and necessary resources to fund public services and finance a fair and sustainable economic recovery.

The Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union has flagged it wants to make multinationals’ tax affairs more transparent by introducing Public Country by Country Reporting which shows the revenue, profits, taxes paid in each of the countries where the multinationals operate. Key countries like Germany and Sweden must stop blocking these measures.

The EU countries should also put an end to harmful tax competition which has led to a race to the bottom in corporate tax rates by supporting a global effective minimum tax on corporate profits of at least 25% and unitary taxation.