17 November 2004
U.S., EU Discuss Fight Against Terrorist Financing
Treasury Department's Levey meets with EU counterterrorism officials
The European Union's decision to require anyone carrying more than 10,000 euros into or out of the EU to make a written declaration to that effect "an excellent step" in the fight against terrorist financing, a senior U.S. Treasury official said November 17.
"This is a perfect example of the kind of standard-raising worldwide that has a real impact on the movement of money by terrorists, and in particular with respect to cash couriers, against organized criminals," said Stuart Levey, U.S. Treasury under secretary for enforcement and head of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Levey spoke alongside Gijs de Vries, the EU's counterterrorism coordinator, after they met in Brussels to discuss combating terrorist financing. Levey noted that the United States has had similar rules on cash couriers for some time. EU finance ministers agreed to the measure on November 16.
International cooperation on terrorist financing "has been one of the great success stories in the global fight against terrorism," Levey said. "Worldwide, we've frozen over 142 million dollars of terrorist-related assets through the mechanisms established by the United Nations," he said, adding that the United States has designated 393 people as being facilitators of terrorism.
De Vries noted that he would submit a report to EU finance ministers December 7 on the fight against terrorist financing, and that High Representative Javier Solana and the European Commission were in the final stages of drafting a policy document on terrorist financing for presentation to the European Council in December. "That will update our strategy, it will further sharpen our focus, and it will contribute to our effectiveness in this fight," he said.
Turning to ongoing challenges, Levey said the United States has been hoping for better progress on the implementation of the EU's decision to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. "That was a great step," he said. " But there are still charities operating within Europe that we have designated in the United States ... that in our view are clearly funding Hamas, and therefore funding terrorism and should not be operating."
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=November&x=20041117115059XLrenneF0.9751551&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
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