The money laundering scandals that rocked several European banks in recent years were probably not isolated cases.

Several other institutes from Scandinavia and the Baltic States were involved in the affair surrounding Danske Bank, whose Estonian branch is said to have sent around 200 billion dollars from dubious origins all over the world, mainly for Russian customers.

The Latvian bank ABLV even had to be liquidated in 2018 after an American authority accused it of systematic money laundering.

The Dutch ING bank also had to deal with a money laundering affair.

Werner Mussler

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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The scandals had something in common: the supervisory authorities did not prevent them, nor did the existing EU laws - although these have been tightened several times in recent years.

Mainly for this reason, the EU Commission launched a new anti-money laundering package on Tuesday.

It contains two decisive innovations compared to the status quo: On the one hand, the anti-money laundering rules are to be formulated as an EU regulation for the first time and thus become directly applicable law.

So far, the EU had only issued framework rules that the member states were supposed to transpose into national law.

“They didn't do that uniformly.

Some have delayed national legislation, others have watered down EU requirements.

That is why the crime has always migrated to where the rules were least rigorous, "said Financial Market Commissioner Mairead McGuinness of the FAZ. At present, several member states are undergoing infringement proceedings because they have not transposed earlier versions of EU framework law into national law.

"We don't want to abolish cash"

Secondly, because of the inconsistent and unsuccessful application of the previous anti-money laundering rules, the EU authority is proposing a new authority that is exclusively dedicated to the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The Commission does not issue a recommendation on the future seat of the authority. Frankfurt is one of the applicant cities. Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, responsible for the economy, said it was crucial that the agency applied the new rules consistently. From where it does this is not decisive for the EU Commission.

As in previous versions, the package contains the controversial proposal in Germany to introduce a uniform upper limit for the use of cash of 10,000 euros in the fight against money laundering.

Such a limit already exists in 18 out of 27 Member States.

It is lowest in Greece at 500 euros and highest in Croatia at 15,000 euros.

Germany is one of the nine countries in which there is no upper limit.

McGuinness denied that her plans placed substantial restrictions on consumers.

"We don't want to abolish cash."

Whether the upper limit will be decided in the end depends on further deliberations in the European Parliament and among the member states.

Some of the latter have registered reservations.