On Thursday 8 June in Luxembourg, EU Justice Ministers reached a political agreement of principle (“general approach”) on the draft directive for tackling money laundering under criminal law. This stage will enable the Council to begin negotiations with the European Parliament.
The aim of the directive is threefold: establishing minimum rules on the definition of criminal offences and penalties for money laundering; the elimination of obstacles to cross-border legal and police cooperation by setting out common provisions for improving investigations into money laundering offences; harmonising EU rules with international obligations, particularly those stemming from the Council of Europe’s Warsaw Convention (Warsaw Convention) and GAFI recommendations to the OECD.
In a press release, the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU stated, “money is needed to carry out terrorist or other criminal activities. With these new rules, our aim is to disrupt and efficiently suppress the criminals’ financial sources”.
The text adopted stipulates that in order to prevent money-laundering throughout the Union, the member states should ensure that this behaviour is subject to a maximum prison sentence of at least four years. This obligation is irrespective of the individual nature or application of sanctions, as well as the introduction of penalties according to the concrete circumstances involved in each case.
Council discussions therefore focused on: the scope of application of the definition of criminal activity; the introduction of an obligation to criminalise individual money laundering (money laundering activities subject to sanctions when they are committed by the author of the criminal activity in question that generated these goods); the link with the “PIF” directive on the protection of the EU’s financial interests (see EUROPE 11686).
The proposal was submitted by the Commission at the same time as a draft regulation on the mutual recognition of orders to freeze and confiscate assets. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)