Panama Threatens to Veto EU Tenders If Not Removed from Tax Haven List

The President of the Republic, José Raúl Mulino, threatened on Tuesday, October 22, to veto European Union (EU) companies from future tenders in Panama 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 starting next year,” warned Mulino 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 the EU a deadline of mid-2025 to remove Panama from the list and said that, for the moment, this retaliation that it is considering adopting “is already quite” harsh.

The main tender at stake is for a 400-kilometer railway line between the capital, Panama City, and David, along the border with Costa Rica, for an estimated value of at least $4 billion. China has already expressed interest in acquiring the construction of this infrastructure.  During his visit to Paris, the Panamanian head of state welcomed the support received by French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in favor of excluding the Central American country from that list, but harshly criticized both the OECD, a multilateral organization that groups together several of the richest countries in the world, and the EU.  “We are in a lobbying process to be able to tell our truth, confirm it with figures and be able to tell Europe and the OECD that they are lying about Panama’s status as a country” considered a tax haven, he added. 

The president argued that his nation “does not support money laundering” and noted that, since he assumed the Panamanian presidency on July 1, they have responded “promptly” to requests made to the financial authorities of his country.  “Perhaps we were included in those lists (of tax havens) because of the reluctance (of the previous administration) to provide information. For whatever reasons, they did not provide it or they provided it too late.   Of 48 requests, we have responded on time to 45,” he said.  Although Panama was removed from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF, based in Paris) in October 2023, it remains on the European Union’s list.  Mulino pointed to the European Parliament as the main “obstacle.”

“For reasons unknown to me, the vote in favor of Panama was not taken months ago,” he lamented.  To pave the way in the European Parliament, Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha will travel to Bordeaux (south-west France) on Wednesday to meet French MEPs from the Renew group and the European People’s Party.  The Panamanian president insisted on defending his country’s international reputation, which was seriously affected by the 2016 scandal of offshore companies known as the Panama Papers.  “Panama is cooperating in whatever way it can and it is not true that we are a country that should be stigmatized in the way that they have done.   We will do what we have to do to dignify our name and clean up our image here in Europe and wherever appropriate,” he said.