Croatia has strengthened its measures for tackling money laundering and combating financing of terrorism, concludes MONEYVAL, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, in a 2nd Enhanced follow-up report released on Monday.

The report found Croatia to have improved its compliance with the Financial Action Task Force’s Recommendations 1 (Assessing risks and applying a risk-based approach), 2 (National cooperation and coordination), 6 (Targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing), 7 (Targeted financial sanctions related to proliferation), 15 (New Technologies), 18 (Internal controls and foreign branches and subsidiaries), 33 (Statistics), 35 (Sanctions) and 36 (International instruments).

Croatia now compliant with Recommendation 6 and 7

Since adoption of its mutual evaluation report in December 2021, Croatia has taken numerous steps to strengthen its anti-money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT) systems. With this report Croatia is now compliant with Recommendation 6 and 7 and only minor deficiencies remain for Recommendations 1, 2, 15, 33, 35 and 36 which are now rated largely compliant (previously rated partially compliant).

Recommendation 18 (Internal controls and foreign branches and subsidiaries), where Croatia also reported some progress, remained partially complaint (previously rated partially compliant). MONEYVAL did not assess the degree to which measures have been effectively implemented in practice.

For the rest of the Recommendations rated as partially compliant (Recommendation 8 (Non-profit organisations), 24 (Transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons) and 38 (Mutual legal assistance: freezing and confiscation)), the authorities did not request a re-rating and so are outside the scope of this follow-up.

Out of the 40 applicable Recommendations, Croatia currently has  36 Recommendations rated as compliant or largely compliant and  4 Recommendations rated as partially compliant. Croatia is expected to report back to MONEYVAL within one year’s time on progress to strengthen its implementation of AML/CFT measures.