EU steps up fight against fake money

Date: 30/09/1999

By Renée Cordes

GERMAN proposals for tough new measures to combat currency counterfeiting, which is expected to soar when massive quantities of new euro notes and coins begin circulating in 2002, are expected to be approved at a meeting next week.

Berlin, which insists that urgent action is needed to tackle the problem, is calling on EU governments to introduce "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" criminal penalties for offenders, including imprisonment and possible extradition to face prosecution in another member state.

The new measures would cover not only money already in circulation, but also notes and coins which have not yet been issued. The illegal reproduction of holograms, computer programs and other anti-fraud devices would also be subject to penalties.

In cases involving more than one member state, the national authorities in each would be encouraged to cooperate and decide amongst themselves whether and in which country suspects should be prosecuted.

Member states would be obliged to implement the measures agreed at EU level at home by the end of 2000 and provide Union officials with detailed information on the concrete steps they had taken to combat money laundering by June 2001.

This would be used to draw up a comprehensive report by December 2004 evaluating the measures introduced by member states to fight counterfeiting and organised crime.

The German proposals, which are designed to supplement a 70-year-old international convention on counterfeiting, are expected to be approved at a meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers in Luxembourg on Monday (4 October) and are likely to enter into force next year.

Hopes of an agreement next week follow months of talks between member states on a strategy to guard against counterfeiting and money laundering. The issue is also considered a priority by the European Central Bank, which plans to establish a special office to investigate fraud allegations and collate statistics on them.

German proposals for tough new measures to combat currency counterfeiting, which is expected to soar when massive quantities of new euro notes and coins begin circulating in 2002, are expected to be approved at a meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers, Luxembourg, 4.10.99.