The Baltic republic of Latvia has pulled Bermuda off its blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions supplied to the European Commission.

And the move means the Island has dropped below the ten-nation threshold for inclusion on the EU hitlist — leading Finance Minister Bob Richards to demand Bermuda be taken off the pan-European list immediately.

Mr Richards said last night: “There was some indication that the list might be revised by the end of the year.

“But we see no reason why an administrative decision in our favour couldn’t be made immediately. We have consistently done the right thing.”

The master list was drawn up to include EU countries’ national lists of dodgy tax jurisdictions, with Bermuda originally being targeted by 11 EU countries.

But Poland told the European Commission last week that Bermuda was no longer on its national hit list.

Now Latvia has taken the number down to nine — below the level needed for inclusion by the European Commission.

Mr Richards said: “I am grateful that Latvia and Poland have acted quickly to correct the mistake and we hope other countries will follow suit.

“As I have indicated before, considering Bermuda’s outstanding record of signing agreements with a large number of countries, it is extraordinary that we would be labelled by the EC as uncooperative.”

Latvia joined the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance on Tax Matters in May, 2013, has e-mailed its corrected list to European bureaucrats.

When the convention came into force for Latvia last November, Bermuda and a number of other co-signatories should have been removed from its blacklisted jurisdictions.

Mr Richards said: “Bermuda has signed tax information exchange agreements with countries around the world, together with a multilateral tax convention, adding up to more than 80 treaty partners.

“This is today’s international standard for tax cooperation and information exchange.”