Graham Watson MEP

European Parliament: EU must not help launder authoritarian leaders' ill-gotten gains

Published on Tuesday 31st January 2012

The European Parliament will on Thursday vote on a report on EU policy towards the leaders of authoritarian regimes. It is expected to pass with a comfortable majority.

The report has been timed to coincide with a European Commission and EEAS review of the EU's sanctions policy which has been requested by the Council of Ministers. It is widely expected that this report will feed in to that process.

Ahead of the vote Liberal Democrat MEP Sir Graham Watson, who drafted the report and who steered it through the Parliament, said:

"The EU's hypocritical stance towards the leaders of authoritarian regimes needs to end. We publicly denounce their human rights records, while letting them busily stash their money away in our banks, own property within our borders, do business with our companies and holiday in our resorts."

"Our message has to be loud and clear: the EU will not help you launder your ill-gotten gains."

"However, we also want to minimise the impact sanctions have on the vulnerable - and entirely innocent - populations of the regimes concerned."

Sir Graham would like to see the different arms of EU foreign policy - the Council, European External Action Service and European Commission - better coordinate their efforts on sanctions. EU countries should also repatriate frozen and confiscated assets of authoritarian leaders to their respective countries, so as not to deprive the populations concerned of this wealth. He continued:

"From Gaddafi to Mugabe, or Tunisia's Ben Ali to Burma's Than Shwe, authoritarian leaders and their money have in the past been far too welcome within our borders. Travel bans and asset freezes have only put in place once the leaders are on their way out anyway. This is of no use."

"What is useful is for us to punish these dictators - but not their people - while they are in power."

ENDS

Notes

An estimated $150 billion in North African countries' assets is held within the EU, including the personal fortunes of Egypt's former dictator Hosni Mubarak and his family and of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is suspected of keeping vast assets in European banks, as is the recently deceased Kim Il Jong.

The report also states that Member States should forbid academic institutions to accept funding or donations from leaders upon whom sanctions have been imposed. Member States should also declare anyone on the sanctions list who holds property or financial assets on their territory and cooperate in identifying and confiscating them. MEPs have cited the scandal that shook the London School of Economics in spring 2011, when it was revealed that it had accepted more than £2 million to train Libyan civil servants.