During the EP plenary session (16- 19 April 2018) in Strasbourg, MEPs discuss on money laundering and terrorist financing. Statements by Krišjānis KARIŅŠ (EPP, LV), Co-rapporteur, Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL), Co-rapporteur, and Vĕra JOUROVÁ, Member of the EC in charge of Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality. Illustrative pictures

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

JOUROVÁ, Věra (EC)

fight against terrorism (T)

fight against organised crime, corruption and money laundering (T)

KARIŅŠ, Krišjānis (EPP, LV)

SARGENTINI, Judith (Greens/EFA, NL)

Money laundering or terrorist financing: extracts from the debate

SOUNDBITE (Latvian), Kri&#353;j&#257;nis KARI&#325;&#352; (EPP, LV), Co-rapporteur, What results have we achieved? We have now in place a number of weapons if you like that will help us to mitigate the risk of money laundering through the European banking system. Firstly, we have the registry of beneficial ownership.

SOUNDBITE (Latvian), Kri&scaron;jānis KARIŅ&Scaron; (EPP, LV), Co-rapporteur, What is new in the directive are the inclusion crypto currencies, such as bitcoin and alike.

SOUNDBITE (Dutch), Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL), Co-rapporteur, Every year billions go missing into the tax funds because individuals manage to go through a whole chain of trusts and companies to avoid paying tax. So in this way we are going to be counter-acting people who are avoiding paying their tax. We see that criminals are getting cleverer all the time, they use different ways of money laundering and of financing terrorism, the use of bitcoin and anonymous pre-paid cards.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vĕra JOUROV&Aacute;, Member of the EC in charge of Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, The revised rules set a new world standard on transparency of beneficial ownership. By making beneficial ownership information available to competent authorities and to the public as regards companies it will make sure opaque structures cannot be used to facilitate money laundering. Secondly,  the revised directive addresses new risks of terrorist funding, it will virtual currency platforms into its scope and restrict the anonymous use of pre-paid cards.

SOUNDBITE (English), V&#277;ra JOUROV&#193;, Member of the EC in charge of Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, The Commission is also taking action against those Member States that have yet to transpose the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive in force since June 2017.