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The changes are being made ahead of a review by international money-laundering standards watchdog Moneyval, reported Reuters, as some officials are concerned the review could end with the state being labelled risky.
Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins welcomed the parliament vote. “These ambitious reforms are a big step forward
in our fight against money laundering, the financing
of terrorism and arms proliferation. These measures demonstrate our unbending political will to make further changes in the financial sector as quickly as possible and to become a leader in transparency and governance in EU,” Karins said.
Riga also sought to highlight the progress already made this year in cleaning up the financial sector. According to the government statement, the authorities have frozen €83.2mn in assets in 2019 to prevent money laundering, which is five times the amount in the same period in 2018. It has also eliminated over 17,000 shell companies, an non-EU foreign deposits in the country have fallen to just 8%.
While most EU countries are set to
hit this point within the next decade, factors including demographic
decline and the mass emigration of the working age population to western Europe, means the EU members from Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe are facing a more immediate labour market crisis.
the following year, and Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia in 2024. The first west European economy to reach its tipping point – Germany – will also do so in 2024.
By 2026, all the eastern EU member states will have passed their tipping points, with the exceptions of Romania
“This is an enormous challenge for policy-makers, and will become even more so in the future,” says the report from wiiw. “Policy options to counter demographic trends can be split into four main areas: higher productivity, immigration, activity rates, or fertility. However, none is a silver bullet. Even if all of these policies are pursued successfully and in combination, they are unlikely to fundamentally alter the picture.”
However, says the report from
wiiw – which previously stressed
the importance of investing into automation in response to tightening labour markets in CEE – “the implications of this demographic decline do not have to be all negative”.
"Combined with intelligent upgrading of infrastructure and investment in productivity-enhancing improvements in industry, there is no reason that these population trends cannot go hand-in- hand with increases in per capita GDP and living standards,” it says. “Much can be learned from Japan in this regard.”
“Labour demand is forecast to equal supply in Bulgaria in 2022, while Slovenia will reach its tipping point the following year, and Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia in 2024”
However, this is a pressing issue for the whole of the bloc, as by 2030 labour demand will equal supply in most of the EU, and by 2050 supply will exceed demand only in France and Denmark, according to wiiw’s report “EU Faces
a Tough Demographic Reckoning”.
Labour demand is forecast to equal supply in Bulgaria in 2022, while Slovenia will reach its tipping point
(2032) and Croatia (2041). But even these countries have already seen
a serious squeeze on their labour markets: Romania was identified by
a 2018 ManpowerGroup survey has having one of the world’s most acute shortages of skilled workers, while in Croatia employers are pressing the government to make it easier for them to bring in foreign workers for the summer tourist season.
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