The European Commission on December 21 proposed the tightening of
controls on cash and precious metals that are transferred to the bloc
from non-EU countries.
The proposal is part of the EU’s action plan to cut financing to Islamic
State. It comes after the December 19 attack in Berlin in which 12
people were killed when a truck ploughed into a crowd at a busy
Christmas market.
Under the new proposals, customs officials in EU member states will be
given the powers of checking freight payments via cards and
prepaid/debit cards.
This means that anyone carrying more than €10,000 in cash will be required to declare this at customs when entering the EU.
EU officials also said some of the recent attacks in Europe were carried
out with limited funds, sometimes sent from outside the EU. These
amounts probably originated from criminal activities, such as drug
dealing, according to Vera Jourova, the EU Commissioner for Justice.
She presented the Commission’s proposal on freezing terrorists’
financial resources and on confiscating assets – even from those who are
only suspected of being connected to criminals.
“There are a lot of new ways of transferring money and not all of those
are covered in the EU-US scheme,” Julian King, the Commissioner for the
Security Union, told a news conference in Brussels. He also said the
Commission will study the impact of a possible EU programme and “report
back by next summer”.
Read more: EU tables new rules to counter money laundering
