Last Updated on May 19, 2020, 8:45 AM AST by Anthony Morris
The European Commission has named Barbados for being blacklisted this year and the local politicians are expressing bewilderment on the move of the EC and they are claiming a shift of goalposts as the EC’s compliance standards were concerned.
The EC announced on May 7 that it has “adopted a new blacklist of third countries with strategic deficiencies in their counter-terrorist financing and anti-money laundering frameworks.
The Bahamas and Jamaica were also named in the blacklist along with Barbados among the 12 countries to be blacklisted.
On the other hand, Guyana which had been there in that list for a very long time now has been taken off.
This new blacklist will become effective from Oct 1, and the delisting of countries would happen 20 days after the announcement.
The Commission, which is the executive wing of the EU, has explained that it has modified criteria for determining compliance of third countries, in order to “deliver a new and comprehensive framework for fighting against the money laundering and terrorist financing. The new methodology for identifying and mitigating the threats that strategic deficiencies in the anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing of third countries may cause.
The EC said that the listed states have deficiencies within its ‘Third Country Policy’, the policy which covers: measures relating to customer due diligence; the criminalisation of money laundering and terrorist financing; requirements relating to record-keeping; requirements to report suspicious transactions; and the availability of timely and accurate information of the beneficial ownership of the legal persons and the arrangements to competent authorities.
Additional deficiencies are the procedures and powers of the third country’s competent authorities for the purposes of fighting terrorist financing and money laundering including appropriately effective, dissuasive and proportionate sanctions, as well as the third country’s practices in the cooperation and exchange of information with Member States’ competent authorities; and the effectiveness of the third country’s Anti-Money Laundering / Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) system in addressing money laundering or terrorist financing risks.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
