On March 31, 2022, two committees of the European Parliament have positioned themselves on a bill aiming to strengthen European Union rules on transactions in crypto-assets. The stated objective is clear: to fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
European parliamentarians want to improve the traceability of crypto-assets
The MEPs of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and those of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, adopted by 93 votes for, 14 against and 14 abstentions, their position on this draft law. With this new text, the objective of the legislators is improve the traceability of crypto-asset transfers. As stated in the press release of the European Parliament, “from now on, all transfers of crypto-assets will have to be accompanied by information concerning the sources and the beneficiaries”.
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With such regulations, parliamentarians hope to ensure better traceability of crypto-asset transfers and block suspicious transactions. It is specified that these new rules should not apply to person-to-person transfers of crypto-assets carried out without a service provider, such as bitcoin exchange platforms, or between service providers acting on their own behalf. This legislative package also includes the revision of the European regulation “TFR” on Funds Transfers, which in its current version would extend the requirements for money transfers to crypto-assets.
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According to Ernest Urtasun, co-rapporteur of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, “Illicit flows of crypto-assets go largely unnoticed across the European Union and the world, making them ideal instruments to ensure anonymity. As past money laundering scandals ranging from the Panama Papers to the Pandora Papers have shown, criminals thrive where anonymity is guaranteed due to secrecy rules. With this legislative proposal, the Union can fill this gap”.
Cryptocurrency industry players disagree. They also strongly criticized the text proposed by the European Parliament, considering that it constitutes a risk to user privacy and a brake on innovation. A position also adopted by MP Pierre Person (LREM), very active on social networks and in particular on topics related to cryptocurrencies and NFTs. According to him, this text will “harming the economic interests and individual freedoms of Europeans”. He believes that this regulation imposes a presumption of guilt on the holders of crypto-assets and even thinks that it could ” to kill “ several of our French unicorns.