EU Policy Enforcement and Anti-Money Laundering Overhaul in the EU: A New Analytical Approach

Abstract

This paper examines the revised enforcement system for anti-money laundering (AML) in the EU, focusing on the creation of a new EU agency – the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA). The paper asks how the reformed framework ensures a more consistent and efficient AML enforcement in the EU, compared with prior regimes. The literature primarily examines agencification in the EU through the dimensions of centralisation/decentralization and direct/indirect enforcement powers, however, this analytical lens is incomplete for the revised AML enforcement system. We therefore devise a third dimension for analysing enforcement that relies on operational and collaborative integration throughout the system. This third dimension highlights specific features, namely, how agencification in a common system enables a shared operational responsibility, steered by legal and institutional integration, common methodologies and practices. These features bind the various actors together, moving beyond a network model based on coordination towards a more harmonised and cooperative system of enforcement. The three-dimensional (3D) model serves as an analytical approach for studying the EU enforcement regime for AML, one that could also be used in other areas of EU policy enforcement.