EU Global Facility on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (GF-AML/CFT)

Vulnerabilities within national anti-money laundering / countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) frameworks represent potential threats to financial systems as well as opportunities for terrorist groups and organised crime to support their activities.

In 2017, the European Union stressed the need to continue prioritising efforts to counter terrorist financing and money laundering. This includes implementing policies and regulations designed to prevent misuse of financial systems for these ends, reinforcing judicial cooperation and response, promoting cooperation between competent authorities, freezing assets of terrorists, adopting and implementing sanctions and providing law enforcement with the tools to trace illicit financial activity but also collaborate with third countries.

The project has three specific objectives:

• Strenghtening AML/CFT legislative, regulatory and policy framework
• Building AML/CFT institutional capacities in partner countries
• Increasing national, regional and international cooperation on AML/CFT issues.

In this regard, the objective of the EU Global Facility on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing is to provide support to partner countries to put in place effective AML/CFT frameworks in compliance with the AML/CFT international standards. Those include EU recommendations and United Nations Security Council Resolutions, as well as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations.

All stages of the financial investigation and penal chain benefit from support activities: detection of suspicious flows, analysis, investigation, legal decision, up until the asset recovery. The project deals with five key areas:

• Regulation and financial investigation
• Effective beneficiaries
• Law enforcement
• Justice
• Civil society and the media

The project also aims to encourage cooperation between financial regulators, law enforcement, justice actors and civil society at national, regional and international levels. The project comprises of a global facility, structured technical assistance and equipment, working closely with partner countries for demand driven tailored support.

To this end, the project engages with expertise from public administrations of European Union Member States and partner countries (justice, law enforcement and regulator), banking sector, international organisations and civil society.

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