By Debbie Papadakis (debbiedepapadakis@yahoo.com)
While everyone is focusing on the bills to be passed in the Greek Parliament assuring that ‘Greece pays its dues’, tax evasion by ‘Eldorado’ Canadian company under the corporate Dutch umbrella is costing Greece millions. The evasion of taxes that mounts to sums of 1.7 million euros ($1.8 million) to the Greece government ‘flies by’ without being seen by Dutch creditors nor the EU according to SOMO reports. How is that so? Indeed, reports further state that this is not an isolated incident, it is common practice. By setting up by a transnational sister company ‘Eldorado’ with direct links to a Dutch to an address in the hub of Amsterdam , The Netherlands manage to make a lot of money reaping the Greek nation of Gold in mining in Northern Greece and not paying their dues all to the disadvantage of the Greek economy that is locked in crisis.
“Considering that Greece is currently undergoing austerity measures- measures which were strongly advocated for and support by the Dutch government- the thundering hypocrisy of this situation is astonishing.” It is highly significant that the Greek government looks into this matter before renewing the company’s license and should take it further with Dutch counterparts in the EU.
Prospects for ‘Eldorado’ have the Canadian-Dutch company set their sight to a region in Chalkidiki, northern Greece, which explains why they are waiting for a renewal of the Gold mining license. However that is not the only problems they face; local people who have been protesting and have not caught much attention considering that the damage to the region would cripple the tourist industry of the area.”Its operations will devastate forests, destroy local tourism trade and according to reports, encompass a piece of land the size of 250 American football fields. Amnesty International have voiced their protest about the use of police at local demonstrations. In the past, the Greek government has suppressed the protests that have taken place. Hopefully this will change with the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government: “the new Greek government has promised to review its contract with the mining company, but this will do little address Eldorado Gold’s tax short fall.”
While the whole of Europe has focused on Greece’s budget deficit and the impact it will have on the EU focusing on tax avoidance; they seem to have been less informed of the Netherland’s benefit of 80% of the investment in Greece from its ‘sister ‘company with direct link to the only address of the company in Amsterdam. Figures speak louder than words that show the ‘the hypocrisy at the heart of the Netherland’s dealing with the Greek economy.’ Such practices of masterminding tax evasion by using a transnational companies to be located in the Dutch-Netherlands without having an address in the country it is operating in, is highly abusive and malicious to the Greek Nation , now at period of economic crisis. The EU and the Netherlands have been accused of having ‘double standards’ at the expense of Greece. According to the ‘New Internationalist’ the SOMO researcher Katrin McGauran ,‘On the one hand, (EU)they impose harsh austerity measures which have a devastating social and economic impact in Greece; on the other, they actively facilitate tax avoidance which costs the Greek State millions of euros.’
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