Supporting EU Compliance: Monitoring the Transposition of Directive on Financial Information Access

The European Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, ensures that EU law is correctly applied across Member States. Milieu Consulting assisted the Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) in monitoring the transposition of Directive (EU) 2019/1153 — the Directive on access to financial information — in all EU Member States, except Denmark, and supported potential infringement proceedings where gaps were identified.

The Directive sets out rules to improve the use of financial and other information for the prevention and combating of serious crime, including cross-border offences. In particular, it guarantees that competent authorities have timely access to information stored in centralised bank account registries or data retrieval systems, as established under the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (Directive (EU) 2015/849).

The compliance assessment aimed to evaluate whether the measures adopted by Member States to transpose Directive (EU) 2019/1153 are both complete and in compliance with EU requirements. This Directive, adopted by the European Parliament and Council on 20 June 2019, sets out the legal framework to ensure the effective use of financial information in the prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of serious criminal offences, replacing Council Decision 2000/642/JHA.

Milieu delivered 26 compliance reports evaluating the completeness and conformity of national measures with the Directive’s requirements, along with a comprehensive comparative analysis that provided an overview of the main conformity issues identified by each country.

Effective transposition of the Directive means stronger tools to combat financial crime across the EU.