In a hearing on Wednesday, MEPs argued that the EU’s upcoming anti-money laundering (AML) package is necessary, while raising questions about its details.
In a
hearing jointly hosted by the Economic Affairs and Civil Liberties
Committees, EU policymakers and guest speakers discussed the latest
legislative proposals for fighting money-laundering and terrorist
financing in the EU.
Raluca Pruna, head of the Financial Crime Unit at the European Commission, described the details of the recently presented legislative package
in her presentation. It will include, among other things, new
anti-money laundering measures for member states, creating an EU
Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) and modified rules for
crypto-asset transactions.
MEPs largely welcomed the package and
questioned its emphasis on crypto-assets over real estate, for example.
They also asked if fragmentation could result from the package, which
contains proposals for both regulations and directives, and questioned
its de-centralized enforcement. MEPs also raised the timetable of
adoption and the reform’s impact on international co-operation.
From rules to enforcement
The next session focused on enforcement
of AML rules. Mihails Kozlovs from the European Court of Auditors (ECA)
described the findings of the ECA’s Special Report on AML,
noting that EU bodies currently have limited means to enforce AML rules
on the national level, leading to poorly coordinated and slow
responses. Joshua Kirschenbaum, non-resident fellow at the German
Marshall Fund and co-author of a Bruegel report on AML measures,
considered the Commission proposals bold and necessary, but criticized
the quantitative-only calculation of the risk of illicit funding in the
proposal. He also hoped that AMLA would eventually gain more resources
than is now being proposed.
Lastly, Burkhard Mühl (Head of the
European Economic and Financial Crime Centre at Europol) hoped that
Europol’s capabilities can be fully used in connection with AMLA while
avoiding duplication. He also said that the current proposals do not
create strong linkages between law enforcement and other AML actors.
After the presentations, MEPs asked the participants about co-ordination
between actors after the reform, the duplication of AML efforts, and
national conditions in Austria and Denmark.
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