Combating money laundering

Vienna defeated: New EU authority moves to Frankfurt

Frankfurt, already the seat of the European Central Bank, will also be home to the AMLA in future.

(Bild: APA/dpa/Boris Roessler)

Frankfurt has been chosen as the headquarters of the new EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA). This was decided by the EU member states together with the European Parliament. Vienna had also applied to host the agency, which will employ around 400 people in the future.

In addition to Vienna and Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Brussels, Riga, Vilnius and Dublin were also in the running. This is the first time that the EU Parliament has had a say in the selection of the seat of an EU agency, after the European Court of Justice granted the Parliament this right.

Not a single vote for Vienna
It was agreed that both the European Parliament and the Council of the EU member states would each have 27 votes, which they could distribute among the nine candidates. However, the EU countries agreed to agree on a location in a multi-stage voting procedure and thus to allocate their 27 votes to one city. In the end, Frankfurt received 28 votes in the final secret ballot. Madrid received 16 votes, Paris six and Rome four. Vienna came away empty-handed.

Should also take action against terrorist financing
The new agency was created as part of the EU's anti-money laundering package and is also intended to combat terrorist financing. It is to directly supervise up to 40 cross-border financial institutions (including crypto service providers) that have been identified as posing a high risk in terms of money laundering.

For the remaining financial institutions, supervision will remain the responsibility of the national authorities. In the non-banking sector, the AMLA will also be able to support the national authorities.