Can you picture him telling a committee of MEPs that he has a company in Panama because he had a Chinese wife?

The European Parliament is to set up a committee of inquiry into the use of offshore companies by individuals and multinationals, which costs the European Union billions of euros every year in lost taxes.

Philippe Lambert, of the European Greens, who is a member of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect, said yesterday the Panama Papers documentation reveals how “we have so far only been looking at the tip of the iceberg of the odious tax avoidance practices employed by wealthy individuals and businesses”.

A mandate for the parliament’s ‘Panama Papers’ committee will be agreed upon in May. MEPs will then he chosen to sit on the committee, before which Konrad Mizzi will have to appear in his capacity as health and energy minister of a European Union member state, who has a company in Panama and a trust in New Zealand, both of which were intended to exist and operate in total secrecy were it not for the Panama Papers revelations.

The committee will not have disciplinary powers, but will make recommendations for changes to the law in Europe.