Breaking News

The European Parliament on Tuesday approved sweeping plans to overhaul the bloc’s anti-money laundering regime, including by establishing a new, EU-wide AML supervisor.

Members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs overwhelmingly voted in favor of proposals to establish the Anti-Money Laundering Authority, develop a new AML directive and an AML regulation that will apply uniformly across the bloc, but also endorsed a raft of amendments to further strengthen the measures.

The proposed AMLA will directly supervise a limited number of financial institutions and serve as an information-sharing hub for financial intelligence units. But MEPs also want the agency to become the bloc’s future coordinator for sanctions amid concerns over uneven implementation and enforcement of EU financial and trade embargos by member states.

MEPs also voted in favor of lowering the threshold at which financial institutions must identify the true owners of legal entities they serve and reducing a proposed €10,000 limit on cash payments to €7,000. The Parliament will enter negotiations on the AML package with national governments and the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, later this year.