The adoption and presentation of the European Commission’s action plan on the fight against money laundering, initially scheduled for 25 March, will be postponed to a later date because of the institutional disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a European Commission spokesman confirmed to us on Monday 16 March.
A draft communication, put online on Monday by Politico, confirms the Commission’s intention to present, in the first quarter of 2021, a proposal for a regulation to transform part of the provisions of the 5th anti-money laundering directive into directly applicable provisions and to extend the scope of European legislation to suppliers of crypto-assets (see EUROPE 12434/2).
According to the paper, the Commission is not abandoning its idea of conferring certain supervisory powers on an EU body and announces a legislative initiative on this subject in the first quarter of 2021.
Unsurprisingly, however, the text leaves open the question of whether the European Banking Authority (EBA) or a new specialised body should take on this role. It merely cites the advantages and disadvantages of each option. Thus, while choosing the EBA would ensure continuity and speed, a reform of its governance would be necessary, while the creation of a new body would allow maximum flexibility in its organisation and governance, but would be long and costly to set up, according to the Commission.
The action plan also provides for the creation of a European coordination mechanism for national financial intelligence units, with a proposal announced for the first quarter of 2021.
At the same time, the Commission’s new methodology for its European ‘blacklist’ of non-Member States whose anti-money laundering arrangements are deficient and threaten the European financial system (see EUROPE 12441/16) should be postponed, since, according to the draft Communication, it was to be published at the same time as the Action Plan. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)