The European Commission is due to present a new methodology in March for its European 'blacklist' of third countries whose anti-money laundering systems are deficient and threaten the European financial system (see EUROPE 12193/28).
The exercise is a perilous one, since in order to avoid a further rejection of the list by the EU Council as in 2019 (see EUROPE 12209/12) or by the European Parliament on several occasions in 2016 and 2017 (see EUROPE 11790/5), the Commission will have to find the right balance between the requirements of each.
A version of the methodology, dating from January 2020 and of which EUROPE has had a copy, maintained the broad outlines of the methodology presented in October 2019 to the European Finance Ministers (see EUROPE 12340/19). Parliament has been informally consulted on this version and the comments made reflect its expectations.
The step-by-step approach - whereby the Commission intended first to consult the countries identified as "priority" countries on the preliminary results of its assessment, then to develop country-specific "EU benchmarks" and finally to ask them to commit to specific remedial measures before listing - was still envisaged.
Thus, according to this version, listing should only take place if the third country is uncooperative and refuses to make commitments, if it fails to implement remedial measures within the agreed 12-month period, or if there is a "higher threat level" justifying immediate action.
The document also provides for an "urgency procedure" to deal with unexpected situations concerning a third country which is not among the countries identified as a priority. It states that, in "exceptional circumstances giving rise to serious concerns", the Commission may trigger a "specific mechanism" that would allow a "body of evidence" to be sufficient to place the country on the list.
In written comments sent on this draft text in February, as seen by EUROPE, MEP Markus Ferber (EPP, Germany) considered that the fact that countries representing an "overriding level of threat" are defined by two cumulative criteria, namely the existence of a significant money laundering or terrorist financing, and that the country does not have the administrative ability to implement "the EU benchmarks", which would weaken the regime, as it means that these countries will not be immediately listed even though they have been identified as posing a threat.
"Instead, any such country could escape the list of high-risk third countries by providing a high-level political commitment that may or may not be followed up", he said. In his view, these countries should be immediately placed on the list and withdrawn once they have implemented the commitments.
Markus Ferber also regrets that the provisional version of the methodology does not provide for the possibility of drawing up a 'grey list' of potentially high-risk third countries on the basis of the one existing for non-cooperative third countries in the tax area (see EUROPE 12295/15).
This point was also raised by MEP Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany). In his written comments, he says that his political group believes that the time between the Commission's first assessment and the possible inclusion of a country on the list is "too long compared to the important of safeguarding the EU's financial integrity". In his view, the 12-month period granted to third countries to implement the corrective measures could be extended to 6 months.
From the S&D Group side, this draft methodology raised several questions, including whether, for those countries that were on last year's proposed list, the Commission would start the process from scratch or had already agreed with them on benchmarks. Another interesting question formulated by the Socialist Group is whether the United Kingdom will be assessed as a priority country.
Whether all these concerns have been taken into account will have to await the presentation of the final methodology and, above all, the list itself, since MEPs are unlikely to accept a revised list on which several third countries would not appear solely because of political pressure from Member States. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)