Reacting to a European Parliament vote on new EU legislation on transparency for payments to governments by multinational companies in extractive industries, GUE/NGL MEP Jiří Maštálka welcomed the result but said more ambitious measures would be needed in future.

"Today's vote obliges oil, gas, mining and logging companies to make known all payments over €100,000 to governments. This is a positive step but we regret that the scope was not widened to include other sectors. We'll be pushing governments to deliver rapidly on their commitment on this. NGOs should also have access to these details in order to be able to hold governments to account."

MEP Helmut Scholz thanked the NGOs and civil society that kept up the pressure for new regulations in this area. "This is an encouraging development but it's just a beginning - ecological and employment criteria must be included. We also want to see country-by-country and project-by-project reporting of taxes and other financial data by companies in all sectors, especially with a view to tackling the widespread tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance that costs governments billions of Euros each year."