European Anti-Money Laundering, the race for the head of the new authority begins

The selection of the first president of the new European Anti-Money Laundering Agency (known by its English acronym AMLA) will get underway next week. The three candidates will be heard by the European Parliament. The contenders are Dutch Jan Reinder de Carpentier, vice-president of the European Banking Resolution Council; German Marcus Pleyer, deputy director general of the Ministry of Finance; and Italian Bruna Szego, head of anti-money laundering at the Bank of Italy.

The birth of the new authority (the body will have more than 430 officials) reflects an attempt to strengthen EU-level control in a subject - anti-money laundering - which, with the free movement of capital, has by its very nature become increasingly European. There is a desire to go beyond mere collaboration between countries, and to opt for more centralised supervision.

According to information gathered between Frankfurt and Brussels, Germany is fighting for the position. But there is no shortage of people questioning the German candidature. The reasons are many.First of all, it would be the first time that within a few months a country would get both the seat (the new agency opens its doors in Frankfurt) and the first president. European goodwill is based on a more or less equal distribution of offices and headquarters. Secondly, there are those who remember the recent scandals that marked the German fight against illicit finance. In 2020, the financial services company Wirecard went bankrupt, while in 2022 the head of the German anti-money laundering authority, Christof Schulte, resigned after the press revealed some anomalies. The agency had failed to inform its international partners, and in particular the Financial Action Task Force, a contact group based in Paris, of the existence of thousands of reports on possible suspicious activity.

The third reason why some people have doubts about the German candidature has to do with the prevailing structure in Germany. Like banking supervision, the fight against financial malfeasance is traditionally in the hands of the Ministry of Finance. Supervision therefore tends to be more politicised than in other countries. In a report published in 2022, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) itself questioned the German supervisory set-up. The contact group praised 'a number of positive steps' taken by Germany 'to strengthen the role' of its national AML authority.At the same time, the FATF argued in its report that the country needed to do more to 'ensure that there are resources and priorities at the operational level to combat illicit financial flows'.

Belgian Consevatore MEP Johan van Overtveldt remarks: 'Before making a decision I want to listen to the candidates, all three of whom have impressive competences (...) Quality is the most important criterion, although I admit that giving Germany the seat and the president is questionable'.