Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves pledged on Friday to help Panama get off the tax haven blacklist as his country will now chair the ministerial summit of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Panama has been accused of being a tax haven, which has led to the country being on several lists, including one run by the European Union.
“Our commitment is to support Panama on its way to becoming a player in the premier league of the world economy (…) and we have made ourselves available to them,” Chaves told journalists together with his Panamanian counterpart José Raúl Mulino at the end of a visit to the country.
“Costa Rica will soon assume the presidency of the OECD and we have expressed our interest in supporting the country as president of this organization on the whole issue of Panama’s exclusion from the lists of countries of other colors on which we are and have been,” Mulino said.
Costa Rica, which has been part of the OECD since 2021, will chair the bloc’s ministerial meeting in Paris, the organization’s headquarters, in 2025. “It is not fair and an insult to Panama to leave us on this list of countries with little connotation. We are immensely grateful for this support (promised by Chaves),” added the Panamanian president.
Mulino said that once “Costa Rica is at the top” of the OECD, he would travel to Europe and “visit everyone who needs to be visited” to free Panama from “any discriminatory mechanism.” The country’s reputation had hit rock bottom following the Panama Papers scandal. In 2016, the investigation revealed how secret societies for personalities from all over the world were created from a Panamanian law firm, some of which were used for tax evasion or money laundering.
However, successive Panamanian governments have rejected these allegations and threatened sanctions against countries and organizations that include Panama on such lists.
The Panama Papers forced high-ranking officials in several countries to resign and others to be convicted. Following the scandal, Panama implemented legal reforms, including criminalizing tax evasion, which was not previously a crime. These changes allowed the country to disappear from the “gray list” of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in 2023.
Chaves, the first foreign president to visit Mulino since taking office on July 1, said that “Panama’s reputation (…) is spreading in various international organizations” because “agreements are respected” and there are “clear rules” in the country.
