France will defend on Tuesday in the European Parliament its candidacy to host in Paris a European authority for the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism (AMLA) which it is competing with eight other cities.
Led by the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire, the French delegation in Brussels will be heard at 7 p.m. and will have in its ranks the director of the French anti-money laundering service (Tracfin) Guillaume Valette-Valla, the new director general of the Treasury Bertrand Dumont, and Robert Ophle who is the Parisian candidate.
The French anti-money laundering system meets the best global standards and produces excellent results, a source told the Minister of Finance on Tuesday, to justify the interest in establishing the AMLA headquarters in Paris.
Among its assets, France also highlights potential synergies with other agencies based in the capital, whether it is the Financial Action Group (FATF), an organization already responsible for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the OECD.
While already hosting continental institutions like the EBA, France has relatively few European civil servants, the Bercy source also argues to highlight the French candidacy: 1,300 Paris compared to 37,000 in Belgium, 5,400 in Germany, and 2,100 in Spain.
Nine cities have submitted their application to the European Commission: Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Dublin, Madrid, Rome, Riga, Vilnius and Vienna. The European Parliament and the Council will have to decide on the city which will host the future AMLA and its around 250 employees, probably in the second part of February.
Equipped with supervisory and sanctioning powers to ensure compliance with European financial rules, the AMLA will directly supervise around forty credit establishments and financial institutions deemed to be the most risky, including crypto-asset service providers.
Suspicious financial activities represent around 1% of the EU’s gross domestic product, or some 130 billion euros, according to the European police agency Europol.