COLLEGE MEETING: Fight against money laundering and terrorist financing: Commission assesses risks and calls for better implementation of the rules

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The European Commission has today adopted a Communication and four reports that will support European and national authorities in better addressing money laundering and terrorist financing risks. The Juncker Commission put strong EU rules in place with the fourth and the fifth Anti-Money laundering directives and reinforced the supervisory role of the European Banking Authority. The reports stress the need for their full implementation while underlining that a number of structural shortcomings in the implementation of the Union’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing rules still need to be addressed. Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President, said: “We must close off all opportunities for criminals and terrorists to abuse our financial system and threaten the security of Europeans. There are some very concrete improvements which can be made quickly at operational level. The Commission will continue to support Member States in this, whilst also reflecting on how to address the remaining structural challenges.” Valdis Dombrovskis,Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, also in charge of Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, said: “A credible framework for preventing and fighting money laundering and terrorist financing is essential to maintain the integrity of the European financial system. Yet, today’s analysis gives more proof that our strong AML rules have not been equally applied in all banks and all EU countries. This problem has to be addressed and solved sooner rather than later.” Věra Jourová, Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality said: “We have stringent anti-money laundering rules at EU level, but we need all Member States to implement these rules on the ground. We don’t want to see any weak link in the EU that criminals could exploit. The recent scandals have shown that Member States should treat this as a matter of urgency.” The Communication and the four reports analyse the shortcomings in current anti-money laundering supervision and cooperation and identify ways to address them. Those findings will serve as a basis for future policy choices on how to further strengthen the EU anti-money laundering framework. 

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