Vatican response to financial evaluation will exceed requirements

Vatican City, Apr 10, 2013 / 09:02 am

The Vatican plans to demonstrate its commitment to financial transparency by presenting progress it has made in areas the Council of Europe's money laundering prevention committee is not requiring.

"With this initiative, the Holy See wishes to provide a more complete overview of the measures taken over the last year to further strengthen its institutional structure in the area of preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism," says an April 10 statement from the Vatican.

The Council of Europe's financial oversight committee, known as MONEYVAL, requires that the states or institutions it reviews submit an update on how they are working to comply with shortcomings highlighted in the "core recommendations" section of its report.

The report also lists items that are less important, which are called "key recommendations," but the entity being evaluated is not obliged to inform the committee on how it is progressing in those areas.

The April 10 communiqué from the Vatican explained that the European financial committee "accepted the Holy See's own proposal that this next report cover not only the Core Recommendations, but also all the areas covered by the Key Recommendations."

The Vatican's financial team will make a report on its progress to the full MONEYVAL assembly in December.

The original evaluation began in Feb. 2011 and the committee's report was issued in July 2012.

It found the Holy See and Vatican City State to be largely in compliance, with nine key and core areas receiving a positive assessment and seven needing improvement.

One item that has already been fixed was a conflict of interest created by Cardinal Attilio Nicora having a role in both the Vatican's financial watchdog agency and its monetary policy body. He resigned from his position with the policy unit in July 2011 but remained the president of the watchdog agency.