On Monday 25 June, the special 'TAX 3' committee of the European Parliament on financial crimes, tax fraud and tax evasion once again expressed regret at the repeated refusals of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU to cooperate, this time at a session attended by the European Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourova.
“By declining the invitations, the Presidency demonstrated an unfortunate lack of understanding of the functioning of the EU institutions and a lack of EU-inter-institutional cooperation”, said the chair of the committee, Petr Ježek (ALDE, Czech Republic).
The special committee considers that these multiple refusals (see EUROPE 12019 and EUROPE 12035) constitute a breach of the principle of 'sincere cooperation' set out in article 4 of the Treaty and that “the Presidency has placed itself on the same level as the intermediaries featured in Paradise Papers and also declined our invitation”.
Without reacting to the declaration, Commissioner Jourova was also invited to explain some of these absences. In reference to a meeting held on 16 April, she explained that her name had remained on the agenda even though she had not confirmed her attendance, invoking an “administrative error”. “It never happens to me. I am always in the right place at the right moment when I am invited”, she said.
However, Jourova was there principally to take stock of the implementation of the fourth anti-money laundering directive. One year after the transposition deadline, “I am disappointed that the transposition process by member states has been slow and unsatisfactory”, she said.
Infringement proceedings have been launched against 20 member states. At this stage, Malta, Latvia and Spain have still not transposed all of the measures, while work continues on the appropriateness of the measures taken by certain countries, she explained.
The Commissioner also referred to the update of the blacklist of third countries at risk of money laundering, the methodology for which was presented on 22 June. Before the end of the year, the Commission will present its first delegated regulation to update the list, she said. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)