“How many scandals do we need to take this crime seriously?”, asked Kira Marie Peter-Hansen (Greens/EFA, Denmark) on Wednesday 23 March during the debate on the fight against money laundering in third countries, following the ‘Suisse Secrets’ affair, in the European Parliament’s mini-plenary session, in the presence of the EU Council and the European Commission. MEPs have expressed their anger at this latest financial scandal.
Ramona Strugariu (Renew Europe, Romania), asked the question that had been bothering parliamentarians: “why is Switzerland not on the EU’s’ black list” of non-cooperative countries on tax matters? “We need to clean up our own backyard, we need to name and shame whoever deserves it”, she added.
The problem is all the more significant because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, since Russian oligarchs probably still have access to their funds, which are held in Switzerland, as Marek Belka (S&D, Poland) pointed out. “How do we know that the oligarchs are not living their best life with money in Swiss accounts?”, he asked.
Clare Daly (The Left, Ireland) went even further, saying that “the EU (had) been complicit by failing to call Switzerland out”. She believes the EU’s credibility is at stake. Her colleague Mick Wallace (The Left, Ireland) recalled that it was not only third countries that were concerned, as, in his view, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands uphold the system of banking secrecy.
Mairead McGuinness, the European Commissioner for Financial Services, has sought to stall. “Including Switzerland on the list of high-risk countries would be premature; only one Swiss bank is implicated. We have a constructive dialogue with Switzerland, which I am sure will yield positive results”, she said.
Discussions on the legislative package to strengthen the EU’s anti-money laundering rules are underway in the Parliament (see EUROPE 12917/24). (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)