The creation of a European body dedicated to the fight against money laundering could be on the agenda of the new European Commission, according to a document published by Politico on Friday 23 August.
A European anti-money laundering supervisor would represent “a bold step to address money laundering in the EU” said the Directorate General for Financial Stability and Capital Markets (FISMA) and the Directorate General for Justice (JUST) in a note aimed at making proposals for the President-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
On Friday, however, Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva clarified that this was only a technical contribution from the Commission services that had not been discussed at political level and did not define the institution's future line.
The document explains that such a body could be established in stages and take different forms. Its scope could be limited to financial services or cover the fight against money laundering as a whole, it says.
It could, for example, draw inspiration from prudential supervision in the euro area through the introduction of a system composed of a central EU authority and a network of national authorities, possibly supported by enhanced harmonisation of anti-money laundering rules, in order to ensure a “balance between central coordination and proximity to the supervised subjects”.
On 24 July, the European Commission presented several reports identifying structural deficiencies in compliance with European anti-money laundering rules, both by economic operators and by the competent authorities (see EUROPE 12303/2). But the Juncker Commission does not go so far as to explicitly recommend the creation of a European body dedicated to the fight against money laundering, while the European legislator has just strengthened the specific powers of the European Banking Authority (EBA) (see EUROPE 12161/11).
“If done too quickly, we will likely also get criticized for trying to change the AML framework before the recent legislative changes have taken effect”, the document warns.
The file notes that this idea has the support of several players, in particular the financial sector. The European Parliament has encouraged a discussion on this issue and the Single Supervisory Committee of the European Central Bank has publicly called for the creation of such an authority, while indicating that it does not itself want to take on this role (see EUROPE 11989/9).
Rather, the obstacles are more likely to come from the Member States, for whom the transfer of supervisory powers at EU level is always a delicate topic, as shown by the review of the European financial supervision architecture (see EUROPE 12219/6).
Thus, the document stresses that any proposal should be subject to “proper assessment, consultation and preparation with Member States”.
Nevertheless, it indicates that starting from scratch, a Commission communication or action plan could be adopted within the first 100 days of the 'von der Leyen Commission'. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)