On the evening of Monday 11 December, the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee reached its position on the draft directive to tackle money laundering under criminal law, by adopting the report prepared by Ignazio Corrao (EFDD, Italy).
It should be recalled that the Commission presented this proposal in 2016 as part of the broader legislative package to fight the financing of terrorism and other forms of organised-crime (see EUROPE 11694). The proposed directive sets out a range of minimum standards to make money laundering an offence throughout the EU.
Some of the main amendments introduced by the MEPs include new criminal penalties on people convicted of laundering, in addition to imprisonment, particularly: a ban on them taking up elected functions or the posts of civil servant; a ban on companies and legal persons signing contracts with the public authorities and the confiscation of goods and other assets.
Due to the fact that there is a wide variety of definitions and sentences in the EU that currently allows criminals to exploit these differences and commit offences where there are lighter sentences, MEPs would like to introduce common definitions throughout the EU for money laundering offences. These common definitions are expected to include practices that are not currently considered infringements in all EU countries, such as self-laundering.
The parliamentary committee would also like to introduce throughout the EU a minimum prison sentence of at least two years in cases involving aggravated factors, such as organised-crime and harmonise maximum national prison sentences to at least five years.
MEPs finally decided to reduce the transposition deadline for the directive by the member states to a year, while the Commission was proposing two years.
The civil liberties committee also supported a mandate that would allow MEPs to begin negotiations with member states but this still needs to be approved by the European Parliament during the plenary. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)