During the evening of Wednesday 3 May, the MEPs of the committees on economic and monetary affairs and on civil liberties once again rejected the Commission's proposed blacklist of high-risk jurisdictions with regard to money laundering.
The parliamentary resolution has still to be voted on at the May plenary session, according to the Greens/EFA group. The most recent black list (not to be confused with the future list of tax havens) consists of eleven countries (Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Guiana, Iraq, Laos, Syria, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, North Korea and Iran).
In January of this year, the European Parliament rejected the delegated act to the anti-money laundering directive that proposed to remove Guiana from the list. The Commission is now proposing to replace this country with Ethiopia, in line with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The list is “ridiculous”, commented MEP Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany), when explaining the rejection, arguing in particular that it is unacceptable that financial centres like Panama are not on it.
This Thursday, the Commission explained that it was unable to comment, as this was not the final vote on the proposal. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)