Brussels, 06/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - The 2001 framework decision on money laundering and the confiscation of proceeds from crime is still not being correctly applied by the Member States, according to the update published on Tuesday by the Commission? Adopted in June 2001, the framework decisions aims to step up harmonisation of confiscation measures and improve the application of a confiscation decided on in another Member State. The Member States should have brought it in by 31 December 2002. Added to delayed or incomplete implementation is a lack of information provided on its transposition into their legislation. Austria and Portugal have not transmitted any information at all.
Article 1 obliges Member States to withdraw their reservations on the Council of Europe Convention of 1990 on money laundering and confiscation. Twelve Member States "seem to be respecting" the first sub-paragraph, which aims to extend the scope of measures to a greater number of infringements. Greece, Luxembourg and Sweden have still to comply. Article 1 point b makes all serious crimes, defined in the framework decision, underlying offences for the purposes of the criminalisation of money laundering. "Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal do not seem to fulfil the conditions required (...). Spain is changing its national legislation".
In virtue of article 2, the Member States must make sure that infringements targeted by the 1990 Convention (article 6.1 a and b) are punishable by at least four years of prison. Austria, Portugal, Italy and Greece have not demonstrated that they are applying the article. Article 3 states that Member States must, at least in cases where the value of the proceeds of crime is over 4,000 EUR, provide, if the proceeds themselves cannot be seized, for confiscating goods to an equivalent value. This "seems to be possible to varying degrees (...), even if it is sometimes limited to specific cases or certain types of crime or goods (...) in internal procedures of eleven Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and United Kingdom) and at least nine Member States (Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom, most probably Germany) as regards foreign requests". Article 4 stipulates that requests for identification, detection, freezing or confiscation put forward by another Member State can be treated with the same degree of priority as domestic requests. The Commission "has not received enough information to consider that this provision has been specifically transposed".
The European Council included this framework decision in the list of texts to be implemented by the Member States by June at the latest. In this field, the Commission cannot bring Member States before the Court of Justice. It even believes that "it is up to the Council to decide what manner of pressure should be brought to bear", said the spokesperson to Commissioner Vitorino on Tuesday. Two other proposed framework decisions on confiscation and the execution of confiscation orders, proposed by Denmark, are being looked at by the Council.
An internal Commission document sums up on delays in the implementation of all legal and police co-operation texts approved in the wake of the attacks of 11 September 2001 (EUROPE of 27 March, pages 6 and 7).