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Italy to implement, Germany to pilot the EITI

In the G8 Summit Communique published yesterday (Tuesday 19 June) it was announced that Italy will implement and Germany will pilot the EITI.

“The US, UK and France will seek candidacy status for the new EITI standard by 2014. Canada will launch consultations with stakeholders across Canada with a view to developing an equivalent mandatory reporting regime for extractive companies within the next two years. Italy will seek candidacy status for the new EITI standard as soon as possible. Germany is planning to test EITI implementation in a pilot region in view of a future candidacy as implementation country. Russia and Japan support the goal of EITI and will encourage national companies to become supporters."

The announcement was made at the G8 Summit in Lough Erne at which transparency in the extractive industries has been a central focus.

The EITI is the global Standard that promotes revenue transparency and accountability in the extractive sector. Each implementing country creates its own EITI process adapted to the specific needs of the country. It is implemented by 39 resource rich countries. Last month at the EITI Global Conference and in the run-up to the G8 Summit, France and the UK announced that they would be implementing the standard and the US announced in 2011.

Speaking from the Conference on Extractives hosted by the German Governmen, EITI Head, Jonas Moberg, welcomed the announcements.

“The announcements that Italy commits to implement the EITI and Germany beginning with pilot implementation are very welcome. They have both been strong supporters of the EITI since its inception, and are now taking further steps to practice what they preach. This sends an important signal to all resource rich countries that transparent management of the sector is the norm, the expectation and the best practice.”

39 countries around the world are currently implementing EITI. In addition, Colombia France, the UK, Ukraine, the United States, and Papua New Guinea have also recently announced they will implement the global transparency standard.

G8 Declaration

Following his announcement of UK implementation of the EITI in Sydney, British PM David Cameron put the EITI as a central element to the G8 Summit. The Lough Erne G8 Declaration from Tuesday reads: “Extractive companies should report payments to all governments - and governments should publish income from such companies”.

The G8 have also announced eight ‘fast-track’ partnerships to support extractive industries governance with Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ghana, Guinea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Peru and Tanzania. The aim of these parnterhsips were highlighted in the G8 Declaration: “Developing countries should have the information and capacity to collect the taxes owed them – and other countries have a duty to help them”.

Making the EITI more relevant, useful and central to reform efforts will be a central element of all of these partnerships.

Beneficial ownership, recommended in the EITI Standard, has also been central to the Summit discussions culminating the Declaration: “Companies should know who really owns them and tax collectors and law enforcers should be able to obtain this information easily”.