EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici has labelled Malta and several other EU countries as tax policy 'black holes' and promised to pressure them to change.

In comments late on Thursday, he accused countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands and Malta, of being tax policy "black holes".

"Obviously many countries in the European Union are places where aggressive tax optimisation finds its place. Some European countries are black holes ... I want to address this," he said.

The former French finance minister made his comments ahead of an EU finance ministers' meeting to discuss non-EU tax havens.

When the list was announced in December, NGO Oxfam said four European countries - Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands - deserved to be on the list if the EU's criteria were being faithfully applied.

Moscovici denied this, but added: "If you realise that the tax flows go to this or that country: Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus ..., let's talk about how to solve things," he said.