Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at presentation of the report by the Council of Europe anti-money laundering body MONEYVAL on Albania’s measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing:

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to welcome the MoneyVal President, who is visiting Albania as Chairman of the Committee of Experts to evaluate Albania’s measures to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing and release the latest evaluation report on our country published by this Committee, commonly known as the Council of Europe body MoneyVal.

MoneyVal is a permanent monitoring body that has been entrusted with the task of assessing compliance with the principal international standards to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism and the effectiveness of their implementation, as well as the task of making recommendations to national authorities in respect of necessary further improvements to their preventive systems and the fight against these phenomena.

I am glad to underline that Albania comes from a long-established process, but significantly deepened to reach a crucial stage when the country had first to be removed from the list of problematic countries where we found Albania upon taking over the country’s government and, on the other hand, a process that requires the most complicated and difficult exercise for each country –and for a country like ours in particular – the intensive cooperation of all authorities, authorities directly related to executive power and independent authorities of the private sector and the assessment team itself composed of 9 international experts, who, in addition to the detailed examination of the legal and regulatory framework and the collection of information from alternative independent sources through meetings, visits, individual interviews with public and private sector representatives.

It’s a very voluminous work, a complex process and the report is a result of scanning with a lot of professionalism and with a deeply critical look at any detectable or elusive eye-catching detail, but it’s quite important to emphasize – and I believe that the Chairman of the Committee will also emphasize it – that the entire process is based on a new and more stringent than previously used methodology to rank the countries.

What we are interested in are the relevant recommendations made to our country. Allow me to put emphasis on what I believe it is important to the public too so that the message is clearly conveyed, because all kinds of conspiracy theories are floated in the meantime. A lot has been said and many slanderous remarks have been made over the government’s commitment to combat money laundering and this report in particular, with pieces of papers and documents recovered from completely ordinary documents have been sold as exclusive investigative findings, either intentionally or unintentionally, but by selling them in order to trigger misunderstandings, so that this report comes truly in a timely manner as a document that objectively assesses the technical compatibility and effectiveness of our fight against money laundering, compared to the previous assessment made by the same committee, but also  compared to the recently evaluated countries in the region or the EU, puts us in a sufficiently good position to be proud of the work we have done. In the meantime, the report provides us with all the reasons why the work we have done is insufficient to move further forward and ensure that Albania complies with the all needs and employs all capacities to deliver these needs under the new and very rigorous methodology.

Allow me to remind you that in the 2011 evaluation conclusions, our country ended up in the so-called “grey list”, a problematic list, as an extremely high-risk country for money laundering and terrorist financing and Albania was moved off the grey list in 2015 thanks to our intensive work. But having said this, it is crucially important to also emphasize that the 2015 evaluation report was based on the legal basis as the essential evaluation element. The assessment under the new methodology is related to the applicability of the legal basis that poses the challenge to all participating institutions but also as a shared challenge to coordinate forces and to interact with one another.

There are many reasons to recognize our accomplishments, but allow me to highlight one of them. The value of criminal assets sequestrated during the last five years is higher than the value of assets sequestered over the previous ten years combined.

I want to once again confirm the government’s full consciousness of the difficulties and complexity of the challenge to make further progress in this respect, the unwavering government commitment to do its outmost and the invitation to all institutions, either be directly linked to the executive power or independent institutions or parliamentary institutions to put cooperation and interaction as the key point of this whole process. No success would be achieved without cooperation and interaction among all institutions and Albania wouldn’t take the necessary next step forward.

Honorable Mr. Chairman,

Appreciating you again for your visit and your presence here, because your words could scatter much of the fog created concerning this phenomenon, I give you the floor with the pleasure that not only the institutions of the country are present here, but also a very distinguished representation of the friends and partners of Albania, with whom we intensively cooperate in this respect, marking step by step the difficult but fully possible progress.

Thank you very much to everyone for your presence here!

The floor is yours!

Chairman of the MoneyVal Committee, Daniel Thelesklaf:

Thank you Mr. Prime Minister!

I have been here at least 12 years ago and I am really impressed by the changes that have taken place. I would have wished to be in a different position so that I can come back here, but, however, I am glad to be here and I am looking forward to meeting a series of agencies with which I will be talking in the next 24 hours about ways to best implement these recommendations.

You highlighted the evaluation we are making and the test you and every other country go through is the most difficult one. The main reason why countries find it very difficult to pass this kind of exam is that we evaluate not only how the laws have been drafted, but also how they are implemented. So, we assess more the impact that has to do with the compatibility.

From the technical point of view, in the legal aspect Albania is one of the best countries we have monitored, because the laws into force are in place, except the law on implementation of sanctions in the area of ​​non-proliferation. However, I heard positive news today that the legislation has been forwarded to the Parliament and hopefully will be adopted soon. However, the part of the legal situation is present and it makes me optimistic that this implementation will be based on solid grounds.

Of course, this will happen under your leadership and your involvement to push for the implementation of the recommendations. Actually, it won’t be easy. It will take a lot of work and other pretty important priorities. However, judging from what I have seen so far, the main message is to encourage you to move forward in this direction and speed up wherever necessary and yield results.

You referred to confiscation. Indeed, this is the right trend. If you can continue in this direction, then we will be happy to reflect this and come up with even more positive assessments in those areas where deficiencies have been found.

Two other areas we think that positive steps have been taken are the role of the financial intelligence unit, which is the Agency on the Fight Against Money Laundering and which has done a good job in coordinating efforts with other agencies that should better support it. Other agencies should better support the financial intelligence unit as it won’t be able to generate good results on its own. They are leading agencies in this area and this morning I was informed about the government’s commitment and readiness to provide the required support.

Another positively evaluated aspect is the work of the banking system, namely the financial institutions are doing to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. Albania is one of the two countries that has received positive ratings by many countries around the world. Not all the EU member states have received such a good rating.

Just like in many other countries, Albania’s major challenge is that the law enforcement agencies produce tangible results. I know this is a lengthy process that takes time it takes time, but there is certainly a need to speed up investigations and prosecution procedures which are in line with the country’s risk profile. We have learned that there has been a very thorough assessment of the risks, but we still do not see results in dealing with the already detected risks.

Once again, I believe that the justice system reform is extremely important in this respect. However, the deadlines set under international standards for the implementation of the measures are indeed very strict. Actually, I see the government commitment, I understand that the agencies are taking actions and are working on this, but the challenges that lie ahead of the Albanian institutions should not be underestimated.

I remain optimistic! MoneyVal will continue to support Albanian authorities in this process.

Another evaluation progress report will be released in one year and we will make sure this is a transparent process, where your voice is heard, but again the evaluation will be again very rigorous and every country will be evaluated according to same standards. Hungary is a member country and …[inaudible], where a similar situation has been taking place. Actually they have shown quite a good progress within a short time and the good results have paid off.

I hope Albania will be in the same situation in one-year time. Meanwhile, I am optimistic we will come and find a better understanding and a better assessment of the things that have been done.

Thank you very much!

 

We look forward to working with your colleagues for the rest of the day.