The EU on Monday (13 May) said many Cypriot banks do not know who their customers really are, but wired Nicosia €2 billion anyway. Commenting on a recent study on money laundering in the Mediterranean island, eurozone ...

Croatia, about to enter the EU, is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe according to a new survey. But Slovenia - an EU and eurozone member - is even worse. The findings come in an annual report on corporate ...

The EU's internal fraud office, Olaf, has had a "significant breakdown" in relations with its supervisory committee - a panel designed to ensure the fraud investigators are working independently of external pressure. ...

EU companies will be required to publish information ranging from anti-corruption and bribery measures to their boardroom policies and employment practices, under new legislation unveiled by the European Commission on ...

French leader Francois Hollande has promised to "eradicate" tax havens in the EU and in the wider world, after his approval rating fell to 26 percent following a tax evasion scandal. Speaking on national TV on Wednesday ...

With just three months left before Croatia joins the EU, the European Commission has urged it to do more to fight corruption and human trafficking. The commission's 15-page report, published on Tuesday (26 March) notes ...

Auditors on an EU-sponsored mission to see if Cypriot banks launder money for Russian criminals began work last Wednesday (20 March). The project has slipped out of view amid dramatic talks on Cyprus' new bailout. But ...

As anti-money-laundering auditors begin work in Cyprus, some experts, such as the head of European operations for US due-diligence firm Kroll, are questioning the value of the exercise. EU lenders want it to shed light ...

An estimated €120 billion is lost to corruption each year throughout the 27 member states, the EU commissioner for home affairs Cecilia Malmstrom has said. “In public procurement, studies suggest that up to 20 to 25 ...

"The Magnitsky Affair" is the latest in a series of EUobserver investigative reports. It looks at what the EU is really willing to do to confront Russian human rights abuses on its doorstep.

Financial sleuths from six EU countries are joining forces to see if millions of euros of Russian mafia money was laundered through their banks. The move comes after the European Commission introduced a request for a ...

Despite what the Kremlin says, Russia is not threatened by so-called Western values. Nor is it threatened by the European Parliament, the US state department, by what Russia likes to call "unnamed foreign powers," by ...

EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy has called the murder in 2009 of Russian anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky "emblematic" of all that is wrong in modern Russia. But why are EU diplomats unwilling to react with ...

Human trafficking is the slavery of our times with the victims a tiny cog in a corruption machine that involves highly-organised criminal gangs working across several member states, say experts. Addressing a special ...

Moldova has launched criminal proceedings in a money laundering case involving its biggest bank, the Russian mafia and six EU countries. The move comes after a UK-based investment firm, Hermitage Capital, filed a ...

Individual staff should be fined up to €5 million and firms, such as banks, should be fined 10 percent of turnover if they flout anti-money-laundering rules, the European Commission has proposed. It put out its latest ...

A "sophisticated organised crime operation" stretching all the way to Asia bribed officials and rigged over 380 football matches in Europe, generating some €8 million in profit, EU's police agency (Europol) has ...

Russia's acquittal of the only man charged over the death of Sergei Magnitsky will harm its international reputation, the EU has said. Magnitsky, an accountant who in 2007 exposed the fact that Russian officials and the ...

A leading pro-transparency group has said that EU countries the worst affected by the crisis are perceived as being among the most corrupt. Berlin-based Transparency International, which released its annual corruption ...

With Greece (twice), Ireland , Portugal and Spain (its banks) already on the list, Cyprus expects to clinch an EU bailout of up to €15 billion next week. Negotiations on details of the rescue start in Nicosia on Friday ...

MEPs are refusing to take No for an answer from the European Commission on access to a report on John Dalli. German Liberal MEP Michael Theurer, the head of the budget control committee, told EUobserver on Wednesday (7 ...

Two weeks after ex-health-commissioner John Dalli's resignation in what has become known as "Dalligate" - a scandal described by public health campaigners as the biggest interference of the tobacco lobby in European ...

MEPs want more information on the Dalli affair after a damp squib hearing with the chief of the EU's anti-fraud office, Olaf. German Liberal deputy Michael Theurer, the chairman of the budgetary control committee, told ...

The ex-health-commissioner at the heart of a tobacco lobby scandal is to meet with European Parliament chief Martin Schulz on Tuesday (23 October) in Strasbourg to plead his innocence. Dalli told EUobserver by phone on ...

Three anti-tobacco NGOs in Brussels were burgled on Thursday (18 October) in what staff fear could have been a tobacco industry attack. The break-in took place in the small hours at 49-51 Rue de Treves, an eight-floor ...

In the run-up to this week's European Council, new proposals for a "eurozone budget" have stirred debate in Brussels, Frankfurt and European capitals. This "fiscal capacity" has been presented by European Council ...

The European Commission has frozen work on its new anti-tobacco law, despite warnings it is falling into a tobacco industry trap. Spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen said on Wednesday (17 October) that internal talks on ...

The EU health commissioner at the centre of a tobacco lobbying scandal has spoken out to newspapers and on TV to protest his innocence. Malta's John Dalli on Tuesday evening (16 October) first hit back at allegations of ...

EU health commissioner John Dalli has resigned "to defend his reputation" in a dispute on tobacco lobbying. The European Commission said its top Maltese official stepped down on Tuesday (16 October) after his boss, Jose ...

The European Commission's new enlargement strategy says corruption and organised crime are the biggest obstacles on Western Balkan countries' path to EU membership. The paper, obtained by EUobserver on Friday (5 October ...

The Belgian foreign ministry has suspended one of its people in Denmark due to a "security breach," amid reports he is a Russian spy. A Belgian spokesman told EUobserver on Friday (5 October): "We can confirm that an ...

The EU is planning an overhaul of inter-bank lending rates tainted by the Libor and Eurlibor rate-fixing scandals. At a public hearing in the European Parliament on Monday (24 September), EU internal market commissioner ...

EU countries have a protocol for sharing official "secrets." But people's motives for classifying EU files are not always pure and the number of really hush hush papers in Brussels is tiny. The EU Council - where member ...

MEPs on the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee have piled fresh political pressure on their governments to impose sanctions on Russian officials linked to the murder of whistleblower accountant Sergei ...

EU funds fraud is considerably higher than the €600 million reported by member states in 2010. “The extent of the illicit activities that lead to losses in the EU budget is really shocking […] we assume that the real ...

When Alan Greenspan was chairman of the US Federal Reserve, visitors to his office were confronted with a sign on his desk which said "the buck starts here." It was a wry reminder of the power that the Fed wields in the ...

A man named Vladimir is about to acquire a Romanian passport and with it, the right to work within the EU. His grandparents, according to his invented ancestry, were citizens of Romania in the first half of the ...

EU justice commissioner Vivane Reding announced on Wednesday (12 September) a "justice scoreboard" to rank rule of law in the EU. "I am prepared to come once a year before this house to share with all of you the ...

Obtaining lucrative contracts in Europe by companies or individuals still involves, in some cases, bribing foreign public officials. The prosecution and investigation into such illicit acts has improved somewhat when ...

Political infighting risks wrecking urgently needed reform of the Romanian economy, according to a progress report released on Tuesday (14 August) by the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and ...

Political instability looks set to continue in Romania despite claims of a referendum victory by President Traian Basescu. The country's Central Electoral Commission announced after polls closed at 11pm local time on ...

Taxes in Greece continue to slip through state scrutiny as some corporations, wealthy Greek-ship owning families, and the Greek Orthodox Church are either exempt or use loopholes to hide millions of euros. In the first ...

In the dark days of the financial crisis, as credit markets froze around the world amidst uncertainty and confusion, one thing at least was clear. The global financial sector had become interconnected as never before. ...

The European Commission on Wednesday (11 July) proposed a directive to criminalise the fraudulent use of EU funds, with a minimum sentence of six months' jail for serious offenders. "EU money must not be pocketed by ...

Struggling banks in the EU and beyond are becoming more willing to launder dirty cash for organised crime. Italy's anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso drew attention to one of the lesser known aspects of the crisis at a ...

The EU special envoy for Somalia is looking into a fresh report that pirates are in business with Italian gangsters on toxic waste. The Paris-based criminologist, Michel Koutouzis, who carries out investigations for the ...

Turkey is aiming to tell its 75 million citizens on Thursday (21 June) they can visit the EU without visas in a couple of years' time. The breakthrough concerns a technical step designed to end a toxic stalemate. The EU ...

Corruption and lack of transparency are endemic throughout the EU, with direct links to the economic crisis. The damning conclusion of a major study by the Berlin-based NGO, Transparency International (TI), was put ...

MEPs on the recently established anti-mafia committee and the European Commission have revived talk of creating an EU public prosecutor's office. Slovenian social democrat MEP Tanja Fajon - among others - proposed the ...