Today large sums of cash are often used for criminal activities, such as money laundering or terrorism, because cash is easily transferable and very difficult to trace. This is why people carrying over €10,000 in cash when entering or leaving the Union have to declare it and people who send or receive packages with such amounts of cash will also have to disclose the content when controlled.

S&D Euro MPs Mady Delvaux and Juan Fernando López Aguilar secured a majority on a proposal yesterday evening in the European Parliament to improve controls on cash entering or leaving the EU.

However, as criminals quickly adapt their strategies to the new controls and shift to other assets equally liquid and untraceable, gold is included in the scope of the regulation. Other assets can be added on a running basis through delegated acts by the Commission.

In the vote, which took place yesterday evening in a joint meeting between the economic and monetary affairs committee and the civil liberties committee in the European Parliament, data transmission delays between the competent authorities were significantly shortened to improve the effectiveness of investigations.

Parliament has also issued a strong call for more harmonisation on penalties for failure to declare which are currently decided by member states in an extremely divergent way posing a significant risk of forum shopping.

S&D Euro MP Mady Delvaux, European Parliament’s negotiator for the economic and monetary affairs committee, said:

“We have voted to give our authorities the tools they need to improve the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Most important is their fast access to all the data they need. This is only possible if the systems they use to exchange information are compatible and interconnected, subject of course to access rights and purpose limitation.

“We should not flood the investigators with all information, but make sure that the right people have access to the right data. It also became clear in this regulation that a European Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) would be an important added value to facilitate the investigative work of the FIUs on transnational crimes. We have thus again called on the Commission to propose legislation for the establishment of an EU Financial Intelligence Unit.”

S&D Euro MP Juan Fernando López Aguilar, European Parliament’s negotiator for the civil liberties and home affairs committee, added:

“The current terrorist threats and the increase of economic criminality across the EU means we need enhanced measures to control cash crossing EU borders. The text that we approved yesterday is a strong signal from the European Parliament ahead of the negotiations that will now start with the Council. We have updated the current tools law enforcement authorities have to better track cash in transit while ensuring the rules are proportionate and respect the fundamental rights of citizens.”

MEPs involved