The Commission’s proposal for a directive amending the fourth AML directive raises numerous issues concerning respect of the rights to privacy and to protection of personal data. The main challenges are related to the creation of central and public registries of beneficial ownership information and to the extension of the powers of the financial intelligence units concerning access to financial data. The latter is of utmost concern, as this new power of access to personal data is not balanced with explicit legal guarantees. Financial data, however, are private data deserving adequate protection.

I. Introduction The recent terrorist attacks that struck France and Germany in the past year unfortunately demonstrated that the EU is far from being immune to the worst criminal threats. As a response, the Union adopted the European Agenda on Security1 and an Action Plan to strengthen the fight against terrorist financing.2 In the former, the Commission stressed the need for a new directive on combatting terrorism, while also adopting another Action Plan against the trafficking of firearms and controlling the use of explosives. The latter is part of a comprehensive approach aimed at fighting money laundering and terrorist financing.... Read more

Since the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in 1988,1 many efforts have been made to strengthen the anti-money laundering (AML) regime at the international level and also within the European Union, where several directives to this effect have been adopted since 1991.2 The fourth and latest EU Directive 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorism financing (4AMLD) was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in May 2015 in order to reinforce the efficacy of the European… Read more

Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986) was an Italian politician, political opponent of the fascist regime in Italy and, for this reason, once interned on the island of Ventotene during World War II. On the small southern Italian island in the Gulf of Gaeta, together with Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni, he wrote the “Manifesto” – entitled “Per un’Europa libera e unita” (For a Free and United Europe) − calling for the establishment of a European federation as a reaction to the destructive excesses of nationalism, which had led to the Second World War. The Manifesto of June 1941 ideologically underpins the idea... Read more