The European Commission is proposing to add Kenya and Namibia to the list of high-risk third-country jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering regime and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes, according to a document published on Thursday 14 March. It also proposes removing Barbados, Gibraltar, Panama, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates from the list.
With these changes, the list would comprise twenty-two jurisdictions. Kenya and Namibia would join Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Jamaica, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu, Vietnam and Yemen.
The Commission has thus followed the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which removed Barbados, Gibraltar, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates, and added Kenya and Namibia to the list at its plenary meeting in February.
In the proposal for a delegated act, the Commission explains that the FATF removed Panama from its list in October 2023, but the country remained identified by the EU as a high-risk third country due to further strategic deficiencies, notably with regard to transparency of beneficial ownership. Available information sources have since enabled the Commission to conclude that Panama has now addressed such deficiencies (see EUROPE 13283/7).
However, the Commission has not followed the FATF’s recommendations concerning Turkey, Croatia and Bulgaria, which it also considers to be high-risk jurisdictions.
The European Parliament and the EU Council have one month to give their opinion on the draft delegated regulation. The Commission’s last update was in August (see EUROPE 13237/10).
Read the draft delegated act: https://aeur.eu/f/bdx (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)