European Commissioner President Jean-Claude Juncker addressed the media today for the first time since the LuxLeaks controversy broke last Thursday.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' (ICIJ) wide-reaching investigation into systematic tax avoidance in Luxembourg suggested that the country had been effectively operating as a tax haven, making sweetheart deals with some 340 international companies.

While he took full responsibility for the tax deals reached under his premiership, he claimed he was, “not the architect of what you could call the Luxembourgian problem.”

He blamed a lack of transparency and coordination on tax policies between EU member states for a situation where a number of individual states introduced questionable tax policies, saying: “When it comes to the application of different tax rules, often diametrically opposed, that can lead to results that are not in-line with ethical and moral standards.”  

Junker was the prime minister of Luxembourg for 18 years between 1995 and 2013, and finance minister for six years before that, meaning that he was in charge while the alleged tax avoidance took place.

The ICIJ report based on nearly 28,000 leaked documents was published during the first week of Jean-Claude Juncker's presidency of the European Commission, his credibility has been questioned since the report was published.

The EU is currently clamping down on tax avoidance across the continent. 

He reiterated his vision of a federal Europe where policies like taxation will be harmonised across the union.