Known as Pandora papers, the massive data connection revealed billionaires’ secret financing arrangements and also drew the attention of the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrej Babiš, Owning a luxury property in the south of France.
The documents showed that Babiš bought a villa on the French Riviera worth more than EUR 20 million through a complex ownership arrangement, some of which was at least partly based on tax havens.
Finnish Member of the European Parliament Nils Torvalds, a member of the Swedish People ‘s Party (SPP), told Yle Radio 1’ s morning program on Monday that he intended to raise the issue with Babiš.
The SPP is part of Renew Europe, a political group in the European Parliament that also includes the Babiš party UN 2011.
Torvalds said he believes the issue will be discussed at a Renew Europe meeting on Monday.
"The operational requirements are going to be pretty tough. There will certainly be resignation demands," Torvalds said
According to Reuters, Babiš denied his misconduct in a televised debate ahead of the parliamentary elections later this week.
Hautala: Authoritarian countries are looking for former heads of state
Pandora papers are a data leak containing nearly 12 million confidential documents from tax haven companies, mostly from 1996-2020.
The leak included the transactions of more than 300 politicians and civil servants, including 35 former or current heads of state, as well as the tax haven activities of dozens of wealthy Russian business leaders.
Finnish Member of the European Parliament Heidi Hautala (Green), also spoke to Yle Radio 1 on Monday morning. He said the former heads of state were highly sought after public relations advisers to authoritarian governments and referred in particular to two former Finnish prime ministers.
"I don’t find it trouble-free, on the contrary Paavo Lipponenfor example, has acted as an advisor [Russian gas pipeline project] Nord Stream. Likewise, Esko Aho is on the board of Sberbank [a state-owned Russian banking and financial services firm]," Hautala said.
The Green MEP said the biggest problem at EU level was due to different objectives in the Member States – not everyone seems to want to get rid of economic secrecy.
"The main problem is that Member States have interests that prevent them from putting pressure on and enforcing EU money laundering legislation," Hautala explained and added that some Member States are also opposed to the exchange of tax information and country-specific tax returns.