EU finance chiefs want joint tax-haven blacklist, sanctions

Amsterdam

THE European Union unveiled a raft of measures to tackle tax evasion as finance chiefs attempted to wrestle the issue back from populist groups using the Panama leaks to argue governments turn a blind eye to inequality.

The EU's economy chiefs, buffeted by anti-establishment anger from London to Madrid, showed a united front at a two-day gathering of the ministers by agreeing to work on a stepped-up regime of tax transparency and tax-haven blacklists.

"The risk of populism is very real if we don't act forcefully enough or quickly enough," French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said in an interview in Amsterdam on Saturday. "People will get the impression that we're supporting an unfair system, one with two different sets of rules. W…