BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Thursday it is considering creating a new authority to police financial crime and monitor banks more strictly, confirming a Reuters report.
In an action plan to the EU’s 27 governments, the Commission, the EU executive, said the Union needed a system to tackle money laundering and financial crime with an EU-level supervisor.
“An integrated system should be put in place,” said the document sent to EU capitals and made public on Thursday. The Commission cautioned however that it needed to first conduct an assessment of the possible impact of such a scheme.
Any EU-level supervision could be run out of the European Banking Authority or done by “a new, dedicated body”, the Commission said.
As reported by Reuters on Tuesday, the Commission also published a new list of countries where Brussels says more needs to be done to curb money-laundering.
The revised money-laundering list is set to take effect from October. Companies in any of the listed states are banned from receiving new EU funding.
The Commission added the Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Panama and Zimbabwe.
Countries that were already on the list are Afghanistan, Iraq, Vanuatu, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Uganda, Trinidad and Tobago, Iran and North Korea.
All countries but North Korea have committed to changing their rules in order to better tackle money laundering and terrorism financing.
The Commission removed six countries from the EU list, citing progress: Bosnia, Guyana, Laos, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.
(Reporting by Robin Emmott and Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Alison Williams)
