Othmar Karas, leader of Austrian People’s Party delegation at the European Parliament in Strasbourg wants to make sure European Union member states linked to alleged cases of tax fraud highlighted in the Panama Papers are named and shamed.
He said the EU was losing a billion euros every year through tax dodges and claimed Britain, Ireland, Malta and the Netherlands were the worst offenders.
Mr Karas repeated his call again for the lifting of unanimity in tax matters.
He said: “We lack a common European tax policy, which would help prevent such gaps.
“Here we have unanimity and democracy in conflict with each other.
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“We have to bring up a painful subject: we need the basic rule that taxation takes place where the value is created, that the backers of letterbox companies are laid bare and that a public duty to report was implemented.”
Austrian Social Democrat delegation leader Evelyn Regner added Cyprus and Luxembourg to the list.
Ms Regner said the final report from the EU committee looking into the Panama Papers made it clear where the rich hid their money or parked it in tax havens.
She said Brussels should have greater control over companies such as Germany’s Berenberg Bank to prevent them from getting around EU obligations by outsourcing their services to Panama.
The Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca.
The documents revealed the ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.
Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.