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The EU weighs whether he should add Russia to its “gray list” of countries with lax money laundering practices, because Brussels legislators want to increase the financial pressure on Moscow.
European Commission officials said they considered adding Russia, a movement that advocated the majority of members of the European Parliament. But no decision has been made, officials emphasized.
Markus Ferber, a German MEP that coordinates economic matters for the center -right European party, said: “There is enormous support to put Russia on the list.”
The full list requires a support from a majority of EP -EPs and was expected to announce this week. But at the last minute, the committee adopted it at the last minute for “administrative/procedural reasons,” said a committee spokesperson, adding that it would be adopted early next week.
Recording on the list entails reputation damage and requires that financial institutions perform extra due diligence in processing transactions in which entities or people from the areas mentioned are involved, resulting in higher costs.
The anti-money laundry and the financing of the EU’s anti-money financing gray Usually follows the person issued by the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental authority set up to combat terrorism financing and money laundering.
An earlier version of the Brussels list, seen by the Financial Times, reflected the last published by FATF and was planning to add Algeria, Angola, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Laos, Lebanon, Monaco, Namibia, Nepal and Venezuela. It was also planning to withdraw Barbados, Gibraltar, Jamaica, Panama, Senegal, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates.
Although the membership of Russia was from FATF suspended A year after the invasion of Ukraine, various other countries are expected to block any movement to add it to their own gray list of the body.
Ferber urged Brussels to do more than just accept the FATF list, with the argument: “[The commission] should do their own work. FATF only assesses the legal framework and not whether it is implemented. It’s not enough for us. “
Fatf removed De Vae and Gibraltar from the list in 2024, but the EU’s attempt to follow the example, failed last year when the majority of the EP members rejected the list. Social -democrat, green and liberal members of the house with the exclusion of the state Gulf, while Spanish conservatives refused to eliminate the controls on Gibraltar, a British overseas territory claimed by Madrid.
“The socialists will not vote for the VAE and the conservatives will not vote for Gibraltar, so there is no majority,” said an officer of the parliamentary group, forcing the committee to postpone its proposal.
Adding Russia, which was affected by EU sanctions about its full invasion of Ukraine, would help to convince EP members to support the list, because they can only approve or reject but cannot change, said civil servants of different parliamentary groups.
The VAE, which negotiates a trade agreement with the EU, said that the issue of money laundering is more complicated to improve bilateral ties, according to people who are familiar with the conversations.
Maroš Šefčovič, Commissioner of the EU Trade Commissioner, launched formal trade discussions last month during a visit to Abu Dhabi. The VAE has an 18 -month deadline to close deals, which puts Brussels pressure to act quickly.
But he and the VAE government said that money laundering was separated from commercial interviews.
A VAE official said: “Our dedication to anti-money laundering practices is … strong and consistent with our efforts to develop regulatory frameworks in accordance with the worldwide best practices.”
Spain is pushing hard to solve problems with the UK about Gibraltar after the UK left the EU in 2020. It claims that sovereignty across the territory that the Spanish king handed to Groot -Britain in 1713 and wants to keep the EU on the Gray List to maintain leverage in negotiations.
“I don’t think the Spaniards will change his mind, especially with the Gibraltar-Brexit agreement still in anticipation,” a person close to the conservative human party said.
The PP, the second largest delegation of the EPP, is vital to winning parliamentary support for the committee list. The PP and EPP, the largest caucus in parliament, both refused to comment on how they would vote on the proposal.