Frankfurt beat numerous European capitals in race to host coveted anti-money laundering authority.
February 22, 2024 7:58 pm CET
BRUSSELS — Frankfurt today won the two-year race to house the EU’s future anti-money laundering authority, adding further weight to Germany’s financial powerhouse, which is already home to the European Central Bank.
The dirty money watchdog, dubbed AMLA, brings hundreds of well-heeled EU officials with it, something that should attract foreign investment from companies that plan on lobbying the agency’s decision-making.
Brussels, Dublin, Madrid, Paris, Riga, Rome, Vilnius and Vienna were all in the race, deploying their national finance ministers to make the case for their respective bids and lobbied the bloc heavily for support.
Frankfurt beat its rivals through multiple rounds of voting in the Council and Parliament, including a complex ballot system that resembled Eurovision-voting, to secure the prestigious EU agency.
The final decision emerged after Frankfurt secured a simple majority in a joint vote between MEPs and EU ambassadors in Brussels behind closed doors, according to five officials in the room.
It’s the first time that Parliament has been involved in finding a home for an EU agency since EU courts stripped Council of its unilateral role of picking cities in the summer of 2022. Before that, MEPs were kept out of the decisionmaking process, which was seen as too partial.
EU governments still managed to rig the system, however, by rallying around a single candidate city for AMLA a few hours before meeting with MEPs at 6 p.m. The strategy meant that only one MEP needed to side with the Council to secure governments’ top pick.
Frankfurt’s win will leave a sour taste in the mouths of some MEPs who had backed Madrid, Paris or Rome.
The European Commission proposed AMLA in July 2021 after a series of dirty money scandals that exposed a blind spot in bank supervision.