After years of wrangling, the EU's 27 nations finally binned an autonomous blacklist of jurisdictions Wednesday that present an elevated threat of financial crime, or at least did in the eyes of the European Commission, the bloc's executive branch.
Members of the European Parliament launched a bid to keep the United Arab Emirates on the EU's list of jurisdictions outside the bloc that present a high threat of illicit finance, citing the Gulf nation's outsized role in transnational money-laundering and sanctions-busting schemes.
EU nations unanimously rejected a proposed blacklist of jurisdictions with poor safeguards against financial crime Thursday, claiming that EU officials did not operate transparently when forming it or give targeted countries a chance to argue against their inclusion.
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