Option
| More than 200 signatories, including journalists from Spiegel and Handelsblatt, the investigative journalists Stefan Melichar (Profile), Michael Nikbakhsh and Josef Redl (Falter), the anti-corruption expert Martin Kreutner, the prominent scientists Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman and numerous civil society organizations in Europe: they all demand the EU Commission to support easy and free access to the national registers of beneficial owners for media, science and NGOs with a legitimate interest. Initially public access to the national registers was granted at the end of November 2022 by a much criticized Judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) overturned. Austria and some other EU countries that are hostile to transparency immediately closed access. On May 11, 2023, negotiations between the EU Commission, EU Parliament and EU governments on the 6th EU Money Laundering Directive will begin, within the framework of which improvements in the design of the register of beneficial owners will be decided. Specifically, the undersigned are calling on the EU Commission to do one thing open letter up, doing the strong position of the EU Parliament to support. In addition to far-reaching access, its proposals also include strengthening the proposed anti-money laundering authority and lowering the threshold for the disclosure obligation from 25 to 15 percent ownership. Transparency helps against corruption, money laundering or tax fraud “Non-transparent ownership structures play a key role in concealing corruption, money laundering or tax fraud. They also make it much more difficult to enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs,” explains Kai Lingnau from Attac Austria. "Wide public access to beneficial ownership data is therefore critical to complicating or detecting crime." "The easier access is, especially for civil society organizations, journalists and science, the more effective these transparency registers are," adds Martina Neuwirth from VIDC. "Because it was the media and whistleblowers and not the authorities that uncovered major scandals - such as the publication of the Panama Papers." Attac and VIDC also demand transparency from the Austrian government Although the ECJ declared access for authorized groups to be legally compliant in its judgment, Austria - as one of the few EU countries - has completely closed access to the Austrian register. ORF journalist Martin Thür was even refused a detailed reasoned request (source). In most EU countries, the registers remained accessible with restrictions. Attac and the VIDC therefore call on the Austrian government in particular to end this transparency blockade, to support the strong proposal of the EU Parliament in the upcoming EU negotiations and to previous weaknesses of the Austrian registry to repair. In addition to Austria, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus and Germany are also among the countries that are skeptical about transparency efforts by beneficial owners. Protect journalists and civil society from retaliation As the EU is likely to require registration for users of the registers, the signatories also call on the EU to To protect the anonymity of investigators from criminal retaliationn. This danger is real: for example, the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb in 2017. The Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak was shot in 2018, the Greek investigative journalist Giorgos Karaivaz in 2021. They all regularly researched companies and their cash flows as well as organized crime. "In order to protect the requester, information about the identity may under no circumstances be transmitted to the companies or owners concerned, as has also been practiced by the Austrian Ministry of Finance," explains Lingnau. The ministry was also recognized for this approach Reporters Without Borders criticized. |
Photo / Video: Shutterstock.
