Sven Giegold

Month: October 2020

Cypriot passport sales on hold: Interim success in the fight against corruption and money laundering

In response to the revelations of Al Jazeera, the Cypriot government yesterday declared that it would end its citizenship acquisition programme on November 1. Al Jazeera had shown through undercover investigations that senior officials and politicians were helping criminals to circumvent the rules in order to obtain an EU passport. The expiration of the current […]

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Leak on Cypriot Golden Passports: Unscrupulous mafia-like structure in EU member state

A new investigative research by Al Jazeera reveals how high-ranking Cypriot politicians, lawyers and real estate companies are involved in the sale of EU passports to convicted non-EU citizens with criminal records. The revelations are part of the “Cyprus Papers” leak, which contains 1,400 documents. Cyprus has programmes for obtaining residence permits and citizenship through […]

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Eurogroup / candidate for ECB executive board: European Parliament must insist on gender-balanced shortlist

Today, the Euro finance ministers in the Eurogroup agreed on a candidate to succeed Yves Mersch for the ECB executive board. The candidate is to be proposed tomorrow by the Council for Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) before being appointed by the European Council, following opinions from the European Parliament and the Governing Council of […]

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EU Parliament will announce the rules for a new “Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for journalism”

Directly after the murder of Daphne three years ago Eva Joly and myself demanded the creation of a “European prize for investigative journalism” in the name of Daphne Caruana Galizia and modelled on the Sakharov Prize. Only one month later in November 2017 the plenary of the European Parliament supported the idea with a large […]

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Tax scandal around corona test manufacturer Qiagen: Public funding collected, taxes avoided

Today, the Dutch non-governmental organisation SOMO published a report on aggressive tax avoidance methods of the biotech company Qiagen. Qiagen is one of the leading manufacturers of coronavirus tests and has made high profits during the pandemic. Qiagen is based in Germany and aggressively avoids taxes through a network of companies in Luxembourg, the Netherlands […]

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McGuinness: An Irish for financial markets consumer protection and sustainable finance

Today the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs held a hearing with the Commissioner-designate Mairead McGuinness. McGuinness is the candidate to succeed the resigned Irish Commissioner Hogan. McGuinness would take over the financial market portfolio from Commission Vice-President Dombrovskis, while the latter is to take over the trading portfolio. McGuinness is a committed and strong […]

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