Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with Finance Minister of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia Norbert Walter-Borjan on Saturday at Maximos Mansion and thanked him for his help in Greece’s efforts to fight tax evasion.

The Greek government and Norbert Walter-Borjan signed a declaration of cooperation aiming to fight tax evasion and exchange technical knowledge.

A few months ago Norbert Walter-Borjan had submitted to the Greek government a list – the so called Borjan’s list – which includes 10,588 bank accounts at a Swiss branch of UBS belonging to Greeks with total deposits reaching 6.5 billion euros.

After their meeting, it was stressed that a new bill will provide for the last time the legalization of undeclared deposits in Greece and abroad, Greek tax inspectors will be sent to North Rhine-Westphalia for training, while German experts will also visit Greece.

The declaration of cooperation was signed by Deputy Minister of Justice Dimitris Papagelopoulos and Deputy Minister of Finance Trifon Alexiadis on behalf of Greece and Finance Minister Norbert Walter-Borjan on behalf of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Also, General Secretary for Combating Corruption Giorgos Vasiliadis was present.

Referring to Borjan’s list, Mr. Papagelopoulos said that Greek authorities have identified almost all the 10,588 bank accounts included in the list which was delivered to Greek government by North Rhine-Westphalia’s authorities a few months ago. He also added that authorities want to crosscheck the data and those who have to pay will be given two choices: either paying the fine or stand in front of the prosecutor.

Mr. Alexiadis expressed his optimism that the bill on self-declaration of deposits will bring a great amount of money to the state, while Mr. Walter-Borjan mentioned that in his country tax investigations and services have secured over 2 billion euros of additional tax revenue through purchases of tax CD and voluntary disclosure of fund.