Brussels, 04/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - After in-depth discussion, the Permanent Representatives' Committee was able to reach broad consensus on Wednesday evening on the compromise wording that the Parliamentary delegation to the Conciliation Committee had formulated at the beginning of the week to resolve the main area of disagreement on the Money Laundering Directive, namely the duties of lawyers and others supplying legal advice. The initial draft accepted by the Council and supported by the Commission stipulated that lawyers would be freed from the professional confidentiality requirement if they had "reason to believe" that the operation they were being consulted about involved illicit money laundering. MEPs argued that simple suspicion was not enough and that lawyers should only be delivered of the confidentiality requirement if they "know" that the operation is illicit. The compromise wants "serious suspicion" to be necessary. COREPER authorised the Presidency to negotiate with the Parliamentary delegation on this basis in the Conciliation Committee.
Other questions, however, remain unsettled, the most tricky of which being Member States' option of using information received under the Money Laundering Directive "for other purposes", particularly for combating tax evasion. Most Member States feel that the issues should not be combined - a Directive aiming to combat scourges like drug trafficking, terrorism or human trafficking should not be used for taxation purposes. There is a problem for Germany, however, since its national legislation also incorporates the option in question and Germany does not intend to give it up. This area, and other technical issues, will be discussed at expert level, while the conciliation procedure at political level is expected to take off again on 11 October. EUROPE notes that the extraordinary Summit on 21 September asked the Council to adopt the new Money Laundering Directive "in the next few weeks" (along with the directive on freezing assets) as part of the fight against terrorism. The EP President, Nicole Fontaine, has written to the President of the Parliamentary delegation to the Conciliation Committee, James Provan, asking him to take account of the political significance of the issue.