The EU will remove Panama, South Korea and six other countries from its recently unveiled EU tax blacklist at a meeting of finance ministers next week, a European Union official said yesterday. "Barring a major surprise, EU finance ministers should remove eight countries from the blacklist of tax havens," said the official.

The United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Mongolia, Macau, Grenada and Barbados are also to be struck from the list. The reversal comes just a few weeks after the EU announced an original blacklist of 17 non-EU states, which drew furious reaction from several of the states targeted.