European Commission opened a new infringement procedure against Portugal for failures in the fight against money laundering?
“This week Brussels opened a infringement process to Portugal about our law against money launderingexplanations were asked for not having communicated ‘clearly and precisely as measures’ to take to transport the european directive“, reads in the publication in question, without any source or associated hyperlink.
Also according to the same text, this is already the “third year in a row that the community executive draws our attention to our shortcomings in the fight against money laundryafter, in 2021, having opened an infringement procedure against our country for flaws in the law and, in 2020, we had our ears pulled by the delays in the transposition of the European directive”.
Now, consulting the february infraction packpublished on the 9th of this month by the European Commission (EC), it appears that, with regard to the fight against money laundering, the EC “urges Portugal, Malta, Latvia and Lithuania to explain as transposed into national law as EU rules on fight against money laundering through criminal law”.
The EC also decided to open infringement proceedings against these four countries, “requesting you to communicate all relevant information on how the European Union rules on combating money laundering under criminal law have been transposed into national law”. The rules actually Directive 2018/1673“define criminal offenses and offenses on money laundering with a view to enabling police and judicial cooperation between countries and prevent the legal systems of the European Union brand from having communicators”, the statement said.
Deadline for transporting the directive was exceeded on December 3, 2020 and, according to the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Member States “must indicate sufficiently clearly and precisely the national measures by which the obligations imposed by a directive of the European Union are imposed.
In Portugal, Malta, Latvia and Lithuania, these four countries “have no transposition measures and declare the transposition of the directive complete, but do not indicate sufficiently clearly and precisely for each provision of the directive, the national provision or provisions that ensure the its transposition”, so the EC decided to “send letters of notification of default Portugal, Malta, Latvia and Lithuania. The four member states now two months to respond to the letter and fill the gaps raised by the EC Justice.” Otherwise, the EC has the power to “decide to issue a fundamental opinion”, which could lead to it happening to the Court of the European Union.
In fact, and as had been published in question, in 2020 and 2021 Portugal was already part of the processes instituted by the EC, and in 2020 it was the country with more delays in the transposition of Community legislation into national law, which was verified to be, in the same year, the same year EU country with the most new infringement procedures opened by Brussels. There were a total of 55 processes.
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