Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-13-Speech-2-039"
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"en.20011113.3.2-039"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this second directive on money laundering in Europe has a long history. You know that legislation on money laundering in the Member States of the European Union has its roots not so much in the will of the national legislatures but rather in the fact that back in 1991 the European Union brought in the first money-laundering directive, which acted as a catalyst for a string of national money-laundering laws being adopted.
However, the 1991 directive only set a minimum standard. This minimum standard provided that drug-related offences should be included in the list of predicate offences, and with regard to professions that were obliged to take part in the fight against money laundering, only banks and providers of financial services were covered by compulsory provisions. This led to major differences in transposal in Europe. There were Member States that went well beyond this minimum standard, and other Member States that only implemented the minimum standard. Back in 1995, the European Parliament's then Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs organised a major hearing on this. The outcome of that hearing was that the differences in transposal were leading to major problems in combating money laundering in Europe, as cooperation between the Member States was not functioning adequately either. For us in this House, the result – and there were two reports on this, one in 1996 and the other in 1998 – was that we called on the Commission to bring forward a second directive in order to raise standards in Europe, and in particular to extend the list of predicate offences and the list of professions covered.
At that time we suggested that the professions covered should include dealers in luxury items, casinos, auctioneers and also solicitors, notaries and other providers of legal advice. The Commission then brought forward its proposal in 1999, but we considered that at least as far as providers of legal advice were concerned, it was not sufficiently sensitive. As you know, since the Charter of Nice at least, citizens have the right to legal advice and representation, and this is also rooted in various national constitutions. This can only be effectively guaranteed if those citizens are also in a position to give their legal adviser any information safe in the knowledge that this will be kept confidential and that their legal adviser will not phone the public prosecutor the next day and pass on this information. That is why Parliament was concerned to preserve this right at first reading, while at the same time effectively combating money laundering in Europe.
This then went into the conciliation procedure, and I believe that the compromise which emerged was a good one. The Council gave ground on the Member States being allowed, in accordance with their own legal traditions, to let legal advice continue to be covered by the obligation of professional secrecy. On the other hand, Parliament also gave some ground, by not demanding that this arrangement should be made compulsory, but that it should instead be at the discretion of national legislatures. Article 6(3) therefore gives all Member States the option, depending on their own national legal traditions, of providing for the obligation of professional secrecy to be observed in the area of legal advice.
Exactly the same procedure was followed for other contentious points, and some excellent compromises were reached on those too. The subject of tipping off, in other words a ban on information given to one's legal adviser being passed on to others, has also been solved by means of a compromise under Article 6(3), that is to say by means of a discretionary arrangement. The issue of what should be done with information received in this way and which is in the hands of the public prosecutor's office has been left at the discretion of national legislatures.
To put it simply, all the parties involved finally said that they were not 100% satisfied with this compromise, nor was it ideal, but they could live with it. That is exactly what a good compromise is about, and I would therefore like to recommend to this House that it should accept the proposal that has emerged from the Conciliation Committee, thus making a substantial contribution to strengthening the fight against money laundering in Europe. Against the background of the present situation, and the need to combat terrorism, this is an important factor. On the other hand, we have accordingly also managed to ensure that our citizens' fundamental rights have been preserved without any need to interfere with mature national legal traditions which in some cases are of a constitutional nature. All in all, a good compromise then, please vote for it."@en1
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