Faced with mounting criticism, the European Union has come clean about why it blacklisted 30 countries and territories last month.
“We just wanted to be cool,” admitted EU President Jean-Claude Juncker. “Everybody else was doing it, and we didn’t want to look like losers.”
The EU has come under fire in recent days for its apparently arbitrary “top 30” list of jurisdictions it claims are not practising “tax good governance.”
But the agency’s leaders defended themselves this week by explaining that they’re susceptible to peer pressure just like everyone else.
“Our image has really suffered lately in the midst of the Greek debt crisis,” said Mr. Juncker, whose native Luxembourg, which is often derided as a tax haven, was inexplicably absent from the blacklist. “We didn’t want to be seen as a bunch of dorks with no real power. So we looked around to see what we could do to show off our chops.”
Creating a blacklist, he explained, was the obvious choice.
“None of us really knows what a blacklist is, or how it’s supposed to work,” he admitted. “But we noticed that all the coolest international agencies have them, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is so cool it’s often described as the Justin Bieber of international agencies.”
‘Success’
Though the EU list is effectively meaningless — it includes no sanctions or other measures penalising targeted countries — the leader described it as a major boost for the EU’s self-esteem.
“Ever since we published it, we’ve all felt really awesome,” he explained. “Especially those of us from Luxembourg.”
Such tactics are not new, he added.
“Since the dawn of time, people have belittled the less fortunate in order to feel better about themselves,” he said. “And you’ll notice that we made sure to include only small countries without major armies, so there’s no real risk to any of our members.”
Forming the list
Mr. Juncker conceded that the list was created very quickly, but he added that EU members made up for their lack of forethought with an abundance of passion.
“We were super-hyped,” he said. “There was this big adrenaline rush after we had the idea. We quickly understood why other countries make arbitrary blacklists.”
To choose the blacklisted countries, he said, the EU members used various methods during a raucous unscheduled meeting that lasted late into the night.
“First we hung a map on the wall, and blindfolded ourselves and shot spitballs at it,” he said, adding that EU member countries were cut out of the map so that they couldn’t be chosen.
This method was how they selected the Polynesian island of Nieue, whose population of 1,400 lives a semi-subsistence lifestyle.
“That was pretty wild,” he said. “We spent a good hour trying to figure out how to say ‘blacklist’ in Niuean, and get this: There’s no word for it in the language!”
Ouija board
After that, the EU members used an Ouija board to spell out other countries’ names, selecting jurisdictions including Andorra.
“Personally, I’d never even heard of that country,” Mr. Juncker said. “I’d always thought Andorra was a kind of sweater.”
Eventually, he added, the members grew bored with such games: “At one point somebody was like, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could arbitrarily blacklist Hong Kong? And someone else said, ‘Well, why can’t we?’ And so we did. After that, people were just calling names.”
Though they held several votes over the course of the night, most members were drinking wine by then and the tabulation process was challenging, according to the president.
Mr. Juncker added that his memory is “a little fuzzy” on why the EU members decided to stop at 30 countries, but he strongly believes that their final blacklist is “of a respectable length” when compared to other groups’ lists.
“We didn’t want the OECD to think we’d made a weak list,” he said. “We didn’t want people to think we’re just a bunch of clowns making a random list of random countries and deliberately not including ourselves.”
Considering the enthusiasm with which the organisation tackled the exercise, EU members were shocked by the negative reactions that emerged afterwards.
“We don’t understand why people are so angry just because we scored a little success,” Mr. Juncker said. “No matter how hard we try to be cool, everyone’s always picking on the EU.”
Disclaimer: Dateline: Paradise is a column and occasionally contains satirical “news” articles that are entirely fictional.
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