Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) are expected to endorse on Wednesday 28 November the draft EU Council conclusions establishing an action plan on anti-money laundering, with a view to its adoption, without discussion, at the Ecofin Council on Tuesday 4 December.
As a reminder, at the beginning of October, the European Finance Ministers instructed the Council's Financial Services Committee to prepare an action plan on anti-money laundering (see EUROPE 12108).
Dated 23 November, the draft conclusions of which EUROPE has had a copy underline that "money laundering and terrorist financing will not be tolerated and that the fight against it is a high priority for the European Union." Recent money laundering scandals involving European banks, such as Danske Bank, make it necessary to improve the effectiveness of the current framework.
The document therefore calls on Member States to rapidly complete the implementation of the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive and to transpose the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive before 2020 (see EUROPE 11927).
The Commission is also invited to propose long-term actions to further improve the fight against money laundering and to present to the Council, by the third quarter of 2019 at the latest, an in-depth evaluation of the current framework.
In concrete terms, the action plan provides for eight short-term measures to be taken in 2019. Some of them need to be implemented immediately, in particular the improvement of the capacity of the European Financial Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) to make better use of existing supervisory powers and tools.
It also provides for a “post-mortem” review of recent money laundering cases involving European banks, in mid-2019, by the European Commission and the ESAs. Its goal would be to identify the factors that contributed to these cases, in order to better inform possible additional actions in the medium and long term.
Other actions planned for European and national supervisory authorities in 2019: - map relevant money laundering and terrorist financing risks and best prudential supervisory practices to address them; - enhance supervisory convergence by providing common guidance on how to factor anti-money laundering (AML/CFT) aspects into the prudential supervision process; - improve AML/CFT supervision and exchange of information between the relevant authorities; - share best AML/CFT supervisory practices; - ensure effective cooperation between prudential supervisors and AML/CFT supervisors; and - clarify aspects related to the withdrawal of banking licences in the event of breaches of EU law.
The Commission is invited to report every six months, starting in June 2019, on the progress made in the implementation of the future Action Plan. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)