London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

5 reasons money launderers won’t worry about EU crackdown

5 reasons money launderers won’t worry about EU crackdown

The European Commission on Tuesday unveiled a massive package of anti-money laundering initiatives to drive dirty money out of the bloc after repeated failures in supervision.

The crowning feature of the four-pronged package is a plan to introduce a new EU anti-money laundering authority, known as AMLA. The new EU agency should be set up within the next three years and begin direct supervision by 2026, complete with the power to issue fines worth millions of euros.

But some lawmakers and think-tankers warn that the package might not be enough to snuff out illicit financiers and suspicious activity amounting to some €160 billion across the bloc. Here are five reasons why money launders will likely be shrugging their shoulders over Brussels’ initiatives — for now.

1. AMLA won’t be built in a day


Tuesday’s package is ambitious. The new agency is set to hire 250 people to directly supervise the bloc’s riskiest financial institutions with a yearly budget of €45 million. But AMLA won’t be built in a day. The watchdog is set to only begin its direct supervisory duties from early 2026. That’s almost five years of the status quo, which has proved to be ineffective at tackling dirty money.

It would’ve made more sense to beef up the European Banking Authority’s existing powers against dirty money and improve its faulty governance structure, according to the chief executive of Brussels’ think tank the Centre for European Policy Studies, Karel Lannoo. The EBA will instead be stripped of its powers.

“Now there is a discontinuity and a vacuum of about two years,” Lannoo said. “You will demotivate EBA from the work they’ve been doing. Why should they still care” in the meantime?

2. The bloc still has blind spots


A series of dirty-money scandals since 2018 revealed a blind spot in the EU’s supervision of banks. Governments have been interpreting the bloc’s dirty-money safeguards differently for years when writing them into national law. That’s left plenty of loopholes for criminals to exploit in countries that don’t require all businesses, such as crowdfunding platforms and diamond dealers, to report suspicious transactions.

The Commission proposed a single rulebook Tuesday that will harmonize the bloc’s rules, which AMLA will police, to remedy the situation. Legislative negotiations over uniform rules can take years, however, and there are still some capitals that have yet to introduce the EU’s existing rules. Brussels has been cracking down on the bloc’s stragglers in recent years with threats of courts and penalties. All this takes time, too.

3. Other sectors remain vulnerable


AMLA’s direct responsibilities are limited to the financial industry. That means it’ll still be up to governments to tackle dirty money within other sectors, such as gambling, legal services and auditing. The new watchdog will be able to take over the supervision of specific cases when and if national authorities fail to do their jobs properly. But as recent history shows in Denmark and Estonia, it’s difficult to pinpoint where national supervisors are asleep at the wheel.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×