Member States’ ambassadors to the EU gave their green light on Friday 12 June to draft EU Council conclusions on enhancing financial investigations to fight serious and organised crime.
The text, dated 11 June and copied to EUROPE, contains few changes compared to the first draft compromise of the Croatian Presidency, submitted at the end of March (see EUROPE 12459/23).
The EU Council calls on the Commission to enhance the effectiveness of the European framework for the management of frozen assets. It further suggests that asset recovery offices be given additional powers, including an emergency temporary freezing power as a preventive measure to inhibit the dissipation of assets.
More harmonised, immediate and direct access by asset recovery offices to different public registers, such as central company registers, would also be welcome, the text says.
The Commission is also invited to continue its reflections on the possibility of creating a coordination and support mechanism for the cross-border work of national Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) - a request from the Ecofin Council (see EUROPE 12378/15).
Member States also call for the establishment of a legal framework on the interconnection of Member States’ national centralised mechanisms for bank accounts.
It should be noted that the final text still asks the Commission to examine the need to set an EU-wide limit for cash payments in order to reduce the potential for cash laundering and to study the possibility of extending the EU framework to virtual currencies which are not exchangeable for paper money.
It also emphasises the need for a strengthened legal framework for the establishment of public-private partnerships between the authorities responsible for combating money laundering and private entities required to report suspicious transactions.
The text also calls on Europol to make full use of the potential of its new European Financial and Economic Crime Centre (see EUROPE 12500/10). The creation of the Centre and its tasks should be “appropriately reflected in the resources allocated to Europol”, the text says.
The European Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) is invited to continue the development and implementation of a comprehensive training programme for financial investigators.
Finally, the text puts forward the idea that the EU Council should draw up a comprehensive action plan on financial investigations, as a continuation to the one adopted in 2016 under the Dutch Presidency.
The conclusions will be formally adopted by written procedure. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)