EU ministers call for rapid action against terrorism financing

BRUSSELS, Feb 12 (KUNA) -- EU finance ministers in their meeting Friday discussed the European Commission's action plan which came out at the beginning of this month aimed at strengthening the fight against terrorism financing.
"We agreed to swiftly proceed with implementation of a number of measures set out in the plan," Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch Minister for Finance, whose country holds the current EU Presidency, told a press conference this afternoon.
He called on the EU's executive body to explore the need for possible restrictions on cash management, cash payments exceeding certain thresholds.
"We also asked the Commission to engage with the European Central Bank to consider possible measures regarding high denomination notes, in particular 500 Euro note," he said.
On his part, Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Euro and Social Dialogue, said the proposed amendment of the 1st anti-money laundering will be "our legislative step and other steps will follow." The European Commission will work on legislative proposal to complete and improve the rules on assets freezers, he said.
"We need to reduce the time it takes to transpose United Nations' listings under the Al-Qaeda and (so-called Islamic State) Daesh regimes into the EU law. We also have to make sure that the new U.N. listings are made accessible to EU financial and economic operators immediately after their publication at U.N. level," he added. Referring to the problem of tax avoidance in Europe, he said between 50 and 70 billion Euros that should be benefiting our economies and our societies are lost every year to tax avoidance. "If we are successful in our fight against tax avoidance, it will mean more money for public budgets," he added.
Meanwhile, the finance ministers in a statement after the meeting urged EU Member States to swiftly implement the Anti-Money Laundering package, aiming for implementation before the end of 2016. (end) nk.bs