Money laundering, corruption and organised crime continue to be areas of concern for Serbia, due to their negative impact on the rule of law and the economic development of the country. The Council of Europe remains dedicated to support the authorities of Serbia in building a robust anti-money laundering system in Serbia.
This was one of the key messages at the conference “The progress of the Republic of Serbia in preventing money laundering and terrorism financing” held in Belgrade today.
Tobias Flessenkemper, the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade welcomed participants of the conference, highlighting the importance of such an event, having in mind the erosive effect economic crime has on democracy and democratic institutions.
“By countering economic crime we also counter the human rights violations and abuses that are often at the origin of the attempts to launder proceeds of crime and conceal illicit wealth”, said Hanne Juncher, Head of Department of Action against Economic Crime of the Council of Europe. “The Council of Europe continues to support the efforts of its member states with expertise and capacity-building so that they may combat economic crime effectively”, concluded Juncher.
”The fight against organised crime and against its devastating impact on society, democracy and development has been made a clear priority of Swedish foreign policy as expressed in the Foreign Policy Statement made by our Minister for Foreign Affairs at the Parliament in February 2022”, said H.E. Annika Ben David, Ambassador of Sweden to Serbia. “The project presented today is an important tool for us to combat organised crime. It is unquestionably one of the flagship initiatives of the Swedish development co-operation in Serbia and is monitored by the Embassy of Sweden with a lot of interest and high hopes”, she added.
Željko Radovanović, Acting Director of the Administration for Prevention of Money Laundering, Ministry of Finance of the Government of the Republic of Serbia stated that Serbia had made significant progress in improving its system for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, demonstrating significant progress in the level of compliance with the FATF standards, which was acknowledged by Moneyval in its December 2021 Follow-Up Report for Serbia. He said the momentum in AML/CFT reforms in Serbia would be sustained and thanked the Council of Europe, and especially the Kingdom of Sweden, for supporting these efforts in Serbia.
The conference gathered main stakeholders in the area of combating money laundering and terrorist financing in Serbia and provided them an opportunity to review, refresh and re invigorate their activity within this important mandate.
The conference is organised within the Council of Europe project ‘’Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in Serbia’’, funded by the Swedish International Development Agency, that aims at supporting Serbia in addressing systemic deficiencies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
