The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it wanted to create an agency against money laundering as part of legislative proposals also intended to better combat the financing of terrorism, after several scandals involving EU banks.
Read also: Danske bank caught up with money laundering
This new entity will be responsible in particular for supervising and coordinating the national authorities.
"
The objective is to improve the detection of suspicious transactions and activities and to close loopholes used by criminals,
" the Commission said in a statement.
The new agency, which will employ around 250 people, should be operational from 2024. European rules against money laundering “
are among the strictest in the world.
But they now need to be applied consistently and closely monitored to ensure that they are truly effective,
”said Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis.
Several scandals at the origin of this project
This project was announced a year ago, after several scandals.
Among them, the one linked to Danske Bank, at the heart of a money laundering case of approximately 200 billion euros between 2007 and 2015 via its Estonian subsidiary, a case which also splashed the Deutsche Bank.
The cases have often involved branches of banks based in the EU's Baltic states used by wealthy Russians for questionable transactions.
Latvia's third-largest bank, ABLV, was closed in 2018 after being accused of money laundering for the benefit of Russian customers and violation of sanctions against North Korea.
Read also: Laundering of tax fraud: new trial for the Balkany, only on the length of the sentences
Last month Nordea's offices in Denmark were raided in connection with a money laundering investigation. “
Each new money laundering scandal is one too many,
” said Valdis Dombrovskis. Suspicious financial activities account for around 1% of the EU's gross domestic product, or some 130 billion euros, according to the European police agency Europol. "
The scale of the problem cannot be underestimated and the loopholes that criminals can exploit must be closed,
" said EU Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness. “
It is no longer enough for member states to do what they are doing separately, there needs to be active supervision and coordination
,” she explained.
Harmonization of financial rules in the EU
In addition to the new authority, the Commission on Tuesday proposed a harmonization of financial rules in the EU, for example requiring banks to know their customers or identify the owners of assets behind opaque financial arrangements. In particular, national bank registers should be interconnected to facilitate international investigations. In addition, the application of anti-money laundering rules will be extended to the entire cryptocurrency sector in order to ensure the traceability of financial transfers in bitcoin. Brussels also wants to introduce a limit of 10,000 euros for cash payments within the EU. In some member countries, there is no ceiling for cash payment, which makes it easier to recycle dirty money.
