EU blacklists two Turkish nationals over illegal gas exploration offshore Cyprus

The European Union on Thursday blacklisted two Turkish nationals as retaliation over Ankara’s oil and natural-gas exploration in waters that are part of the exclusive economic zone of member country Cyprus.

The EU asset freezes and travel bans on the two people, whom the bloc plans to identify later on Thursday, Bloomberg reports.

The sanctions are the first of their kind in response to the actions of a nation seeking to join the EU.

However, the decision by EU governments in Brussels stops short of targeting any Turkish companies.

This reflects a desire to avoid antagonising a key ally in the fight to prevent Middle East migration, particularly from war-torn Syria.

Relations between the EU and Turkey have been deteriorating since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded to a failed coup attempt in mid-2016 by unleashing a widespread crackdown on political opponents.

Ties soured further in 2018 when the Turkish navy prevented drilling by Italy-based Eni SpA in Cypriot waters.

And again late last year, when Turkey carried out a military operation in northern Syria to carve out a buffer zone and struck a controversial accord with Libya on their maritime boundary.

The energy-exploration tensions are a reminder of the most basic European disagreement with Turkey: its occupation of the northern part of Cyprus since a 1974 invasion.

Read more at: EU blacklists two Turkish nationals over illegal gas exploration offshore Cyprus – In-Cyprus.com

European Parliament Blocks EC Money Laundering Blacklist because they consider it incomplete- by Joe Kirwin

EU Money Laundering Controls

The European Commission will be forced to draw up a new blacklist of countries that facilitate money laundering after the European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected the latest effort that failed to consider countries that enable tax evasion.

EU lawmakers voted 392-80, with 207 abstentions, to reject the list that includes 11 countries, including Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, North Korea, Yemen and Syria, among others.

These are countries that the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force has signaled as destinations for laundering money or sources of terrorism financing.

Any country that ends up on the money laundering blacklist will face stricter controls when doing business in the EU, to ensure financial stability and general safety.

“We can not accept that the commission relies merely on an international body—the so-called Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—in drawing up a list of jurisdictions with strategic anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing,’' said Ana Gomes, a Portuguese parliamentarian from the Socialist and Democrat group, in a May 17 statement.

“How can we explain to our citizens that Panama for instance, which led the Panama Papers scandal, is not even on the list?” she asked.

Parliamentary opposition to the current blacklist also concerns the criteria used by the European Commission. EU lawmakers insist that the list should also include countries that facilitate tax evasion, which the Commission believes is beyond its mandate.

A key difference between the two EU institutions concerns the threshold for identifying beneficial owners of companies. EU member states insist it should be 25 percent or more, whereas the European Parliament wants 10 percent or more. Negotiations will continue in June.

The dispute over the AMLD blacklist is different from a tax haven blacklist that EU member states are due to finalize by the end of 2017.

Currently, EU member states are “screening” 92 countries as candidates for the tax haven blacklist. The U.S. is among the 92 countries.

Read more: European Parliament Blocks EC Money Laundering Blacklist | Bloomberg BNA