The European Parliament’s co-rapporteurs on the proposal for a directive on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing, Luděk Niedermayer (EPP, Czech Republic) and Paul Tang (S&D, the Netherlands), have further raised the ambitions of the European Commission’s original proposal.
The report, published on Monday 23 May, which came out of the joint committee between the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, regrets that EU standards have not been transposed in time by Member States nor properly applied at national level. Discrepancies in the implementation of previous anti-money laundering directives have also seriously undermined the effectiveness of the framework, the report says.
According to the co-rapporteurs, the difficulty of implementing sanctions against Russia, in particular the identification of owners of high-value property and assets by the competent authorities, shows the weaknesses of the current anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing frameworks.
They therefore welcome the European Commission’s proposed ‘anti-money laundering package’ (see EUROPE 12917/25), including the proposal to establish an Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA).
“We need to close all the remaining gaps, while making the most of the existing system as the foundation upon which improvement can be made”, they wrote.
Among the proposals, the co-rapporteurs suggest that more stringent requirements should be put in place, in particular with regard to the verification of data and the use of technology for this purpose. They also want registries to be able to sanction inaccuracies and inconsistencies.
Mr Niedermayer and Mr Tang also state that public access to certain information on beneficial ownership of trusts and similar legal arrangements should no longer be restricted.
They propose as well to define clear rules for access and consultation of beneficial ownership registers by competent, supervisory and enforcement authorities.
In addition to the central European platform that will allow access to the register of beneficial owners, both MEPs want to ensure access to data on beneficial ownership of real estate owners, notably through registers or electronic data retrieval systems interconnected by the Real Estate Data (RED) single access point, to be operated by the competent authority.
Finally, Mr Tang and Mr Niedermayer introduce amendments to the chapter governing the functioning of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), in order to promote access to information by FIUs and the exchange of information between them, making the most of technological advances while preserving fundamental rights.
To read the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/1sz (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)