04/03/2019 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
In an unanimously adopted draft resolution the Legal Affairs Committee calls for enhanced national mechanisms and international co-operation to combat money laundering. It stressed that it was deeply concerned by the extent of money laundering involving Council of Europe member States.
According to a report by Mart van de Ven (Netherlands, ALDE), the scale, duration and reach of the ‘Global’ and ‘Azerbaijani’ money laundering schemes - albeit not the only instances of money laundering - suggest weakness in national, regional and/or international mechanisms for combating money laundering.
In his report on ‘laundromats responding to new challenges in the fight against organised crime and money laundering - the need to improve international co-operation’, he underlines that money laundering on such a large scale was made possible by serious structural issues at various levels. "Money laundering, especially on this scale, is a serious threat to democratic stability, human rights and the rule of law in the countries from, through and to which illicit funds are transferred, by facilitating, encouraging and concealing corruption and other serious criminal activity," the committee concluded adopting an important list of measures aimed at addressing shortcomings in Council of Europe member states including at the level of financial institutions as well as at the European and international levels.