Members of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) discussed on Monday 15 October the draft report prepared by Emil Radev (EPP, Bulgaria) on new rules to facilitate the use of financial information for the prevention and detection of criminal offences (see EUROPE 12003).
As a reminder, the proposed Directive provides for direct access by law enforcement authorities and asset recovery offices to bank information contained in centralised national registers. The objective is to enable these authorities to quickly identify the banks in which a suspect holds one or more accounts.
While this flagship provision has been welcomed by MEPs, the one concerning the obligation to exchange information between financial intelligence units (FIUs) and competent authorities or Europol is more difficult.
Several MEPs stressed the need to preserve the operational independence and autonomy of FIUs.
In his draft report, the rapporteur removed this obligation and introduced the possibility for FIUs not to respond to a request for information when: - the sharing of such information could have a negative impact on ongoing investigations; - the disclosure of such information could be disproportionate to the legitimate interests of a natural or legal person; or - not be relevant to the purpose for which it was requested.
FIUs themselves are not in favour of such an obligation, said Eva Joly (Greens/ALE, France). For her, an alternative could be to require FIUs to give proper reasons for their refusal, without obliging them to systematically exchange the requested information.
On the Commission's side, however, this orientation is worrying. Trade facilitation is already provided for in the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, a representative recalled at the meeting, saying that if the European Parliament were to move towards abolishing the obligation, there would then be no real improvement in cooperation between authorities.
The rapporteur also proposes to extend the time limits for exchanging information so that FIUs have sufficient time to respond. It proposes a maximum of five days after receipt of a request, compared to three days, and 48 hours in urgent and exceptional cases, compared to 24 hours.
Protection of sensitive data. Several MEPs also called for particular attention to be paid to so-called ’sensitive' personal data, such as sexual orientation or religious beliefs, which may be processed under this directive.
In his draft report, Mr Radev aligned the data protection regime with existing legislation, namely Directive (EU) 2016/680, and removed the provisions that led to the creation of new regimes - a change welcomed by the Verts/ALE Group which rejects any lex specialis regime.
For the S&D group, appropriate training should be provided to the staff responsible for processing this type of data.
Eva Joly also reiterated her group's long-standing request to establish a European Financial Intelligence Unit to coordinate the fight against financial crime through information exchange, joint analysis and ongoing coordination with national cells.
It should be noted that the ALDE group considered that the deadline for tabling amendments was extremely short and requested an extension. However, the deadline of 19 October has been maintained. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)