Update of the delegated act to the Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD) amending the list of high-risk third countries to include Serbia

18.4.2018

Question for written answer E-002181-18
to the Commission
Rule 130
Sven Giegold (Verts/ALE)

Until the Commission puts in place its own assessment of high-risk third countries with regard to money laundering, it said that the EU list of high-risk third countries will match the one of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF).

In February 2018, FATF added Serbia to its list of high-risk countries. After the latest peer evaluation of Serbia by Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, several serious deficiencies have been identified (e.g. no supervision of lawyers, notaries or casinos; need to have specific customer due diligence for politically exposed persons; need for a mechanism to ensure timely access to beneficial ownership information, etc.).

Serbia has made a commitment to change, but, in the meantime, remains on the ‘watch list’. We would therefore expect the Commission to adopt a new delegated act to include Serbia in its list, but no new delegated act has been published since December 2017.

Given the numerous deficiencies identified during the last peer evaluation of Serbia, why has the Commission not yet presented a new delegated act to update the EU list (to include Serbia), and when will the Commission do so in order to get the EU in line with international practices?