Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Vatican, thanked Moneyval’s experts, the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Measures to Combat Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism, for assisting the Holy See in its efforts to achieve transparency and the financing of terrorism. cooperation in their monetary transactions.
The cardinal welcomed the experts to the Vatican on 30 September when they began a normal two-week visit.
At the Vatican, he said, “there is a slow implementation of systems that allow for greater monetary flows that may be exposed to the dangers of cash laundering and terrorist financing. “why “Moneyval reviewers’ interventions and recommendations are a resource we value. “
The Vatican is among Moneyval’s members because its economic activity is not “designed to create wealth and well-being” for a nation, the cardinal said, according to Vatican News. “The budget controlled through the Holy See and the State of Vatican City is basically by works of faith or charity. “
“Precisely because of the priority destination of the funds,” Cardinal Parolin said, “special attention should be paid to the moral size of investments. “
Announcing the visit, the Vatican press said: “The scope of this evaluation phase is to assess the effectiveness of legislative and institutional measures followed by the courts in recent years for the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism. “
According to Moneyval’s website, the program is designed to “assess the compliance of its members with all applicable foreign criteria in the legal, monetary and law enforcement sectors through a peer review review procedure, adding the assessment of the effectiveness of the measures implemented in practice. “and” to make recommendations on tactics for the effectiveness of national anti-money laundering regimes, terrorist and cash financing, and the capabilities of states to cooperate around the world in these areas.
Moneyval made his first visits to the Vatican in 2011 and early 2012; the Moneyval report commended Pope Benedict XVI’s efforts to enact stricter monetary laws and regulations, but called for additional reforms and strengthening offices to investigate and in all likelihood prosecute monetary crimes.
Moneyval’s third and final recent report on the Vatican, published at the end of 2017, welcomed the continuation of legal reforms under Pope Francis, but expressed his fear that the Vatican City State Court had not yet prosecuted for a monetary crime, even though the Vatican’s own Financial Information Authority said it had reported accounts to the Vatican bank to investigate suspicions of “fraud. “Array severe tax evasion, embezzlement and corruption. “
Cardinal Parolin, Moneyval, Vatican Finance
Cindy Wooden writes for Catholic News Service.