(Finance) – Representatives of the Council of the EU and the European Parliament have reached a agreement on the seat of the future European Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Authority (AMLA). AMLA will be headquartered in Frankfurt and will begin operations in mid-2025 with more than 400 employees.
The new authority is the centerpiece of the reform of the EU’s anti-money laundering framework. AMLA will have direct and indirect supervisory powers over obliged entities and the power to impose sanctions and measures.
Regarding the location of the authority, the Council and Parliament worked together “to ensure a transparent, fair and equitable selection process for all candidates”, it said in a statement. The final agreement on the location of the headquarters was reached by the co-legislators in a informal inter-institutional meeting at political levelin which representatives of the Parliament and the Council voted together at the same time, with 27 votes attributed to each co-legislator.
Nine Member States they had presented request to host AMLA: Belgium (Brussels), Germany (Frankfurt), Ireland (Dublin), Spain (Madrid), France (Paris), Italy (Rome), Latvia (Riga), Lithuania (Vilnius) and Austria (Vienna).