Money-laundering pact could outlaw EU businesses in RI, elsewhere
Money-laundering pact could outlaw EU businesses in RI, elsewhere
Emmanuel Georges-Picot, Associated Press, Paris
Lawmakers from across Europe have approved a plan to clamp down on money laundering, pledging to isolate tax havens and make financial transactions more easy to track.
If adopted by national governments, the 30-point plan adopted Friday would severely restrict business with countries appearing on an international financial blacklist.
The list currently includes several major emerging markets, including Russia, Nigeria and Indonesia.
"You're giving a strong political signal of our common will to fight the blight of money laundering and institute better international financial regulation," French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin told the visiting lawmakers.
Parliamentarians from the 15-nation European Union as well as from 10 candidate countries and Russia took part in the two-day meeting at the French National Assembly that concluded with the "Paris Declaration," an action plan to combat money laundering.
The plan must next be approved by national governments.
Included in the plan is a ban on EU companies "opening subsidiaries, branches or representative offices" in countries blacklisted by the OECD's Financial Action Task Force on money laundering, or FATF.
The EU measure would also prevent companies in blacklisted countries from opening offices in the European Union and limit movements of money from banks in those countries.
The blacklist currently includes 19 countries and territories: the Cook Islands, Dominica, Egypt, Guatemala, Grenada, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Nauru, Niue, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Several countries have been dropped from the list in recent years after beefing up their banking regulations and measures against money laundering.
The lawmakers pledged to make financial transactions more traceable and called for "coordinated action" against tax havens. They also pledged to harmonize European regulations by adopting similar definitions of what constitutes a financial crime.
"Despite recent and real advances, there is still a lot to do so that, at the international level, it is materially impossible for funds of criminal origin to use our financial system," Jospin said.