6.2.2004   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 33/43

1.

Is the Commission aware that during the 1990s large sums of money amounting to hundreds of millions of euro left civil-war-torn Lebanon and the states of the disintegrating Soviet Union and Yugoslavia through banks established in the southern part of Cyprus, and that some of these money flows were recorded in Cyprus as ‘investments’ and the rest were channelled to other areas regarded as tax havens?

2.

Does the Commission refute the fact that a mysterious firm, Antexo Trade Ltd, headed by former officials of the Beogradska Bank, played a key role in financial transactions with foreign countries and that all data concerning these transactions and the company were kept secret from the public as far as possible, partly with the help of the national central bank of Cyprus, and that those who dared to report what was going on, such as the newspaper Alithia and the businessman, P. Djordjevic, were threatened or put under pressure to leave the country?

3.

Does the Commission consider that secrecy of this kind surrounding possible money-laundering is appropriate for an EU Member State?

4.

Is the Commission aware that even after the law was changed in 1996 in order to combat money-laundering through Cyprus, such transactions in fact continued, including large transactions valued at hundreds of millions of Deutschmark in 1998, and that once again the banks and the government maintained the highest possible degree of secrecy and one of the candidates in the forthcoming presidential elections is alleged to have been involved?

5.

What additional measures are required to ensure that Cyprus complies speedily, and before its accession to the EU on 1 May 2004, not only on paper but in practice with EU financial regulations concerning inexplicable money flows and how does the Commission intend to ensure that these measures are introduced in good time?