On Wednesday 17 May, the European Commission updated the list of high-risk third-country jurisdictions presenting strategic deficiencies in their fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Two jurisdictions were added to the list - Nigeria and South Africa - while two other jurisdictions were removed from the list - Cambodia and Morocco - bringing the number of jurisdictions on the list to 25.
As required by the fourth anti-money laundering directive (2015/849), this list takes into account the information provided by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the changes agreed at the last FATF plenary meeting in February 2023 to the list of jurisdictions subject to enhanced scrutiny or grey list.
According to the delegated act, “both jurisdictions have strategic deficiencies in their respective arrangements which pose a significant threat to the EU financial system, taking into account the level of integration of financial systems”.
The Commission welcomed the political commitments made by Nigeria and South Africa to the FATF to address the identified deficiencies and called on them to implement their action plan promptly and within the proposed timeframe.
“The FATF welcomed the significant progress made by Cambodia and Morocco in improving their systems” by putting in place sufficient legal and regulatory frameworks. They are therefore no longer subject to FATF monitoring.
The European Parliament and the Council of the EU have one month to decide on the draft delegated regulation adopted on Tuesday. The Commission’s last update was in December (see EUROPE 13088/17). At the time, some MEPs challenged the Council’s decision to postpone their approval by a month, denouncing the “politicisation” of the list and suspecting that it was being used for diplomatic purposes (see EUROPE 13113/13).
Read the delegated act: https://aeur.eu/f/6xx (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)