Justice ministers from all 46 Council of Europe member states will gather in Strasbourg on Tuesday 16th June for an informal conference on combating money laundering and terrorist financing, convened under Monaco’s current presidency of the Committee of Ministers.
The meeting, which will be opened by Monaco’s Secretary of State for Justice Samuel Vuelta Simon alongside Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset, focuses on strengthening the capacity of national judicial systems to respond to financial crime at a time when criminal networks are increasingly exploiting digital technology to conceal and move illicit funds.
Less than 2% of criminal proceeds confiscated
The scale of the problem is illustrated by a single figure: less than 2% of the proceeds of crime are currently subject to effective confiscation in Europe. Criminal networks and other actors are using globalisation and digitalisation to hide illicit assets worth several billion euros, circumvent international sanctions, and fund interference operations — with growing use of crypto-assets, decentralised finance, advanced digital payment systems and artificial intelligence making detection and prosecution increasingly complex.
The conference will address the gap between the legal framework that exists at pan-European level — including the Council of Europe’s Warsaw Convention on laundering, seizure and confiscation of criminal assets, and its new additional protocol specifically targeting criminal asset recovery — and the concrete results being achieved within national justice systems. Despite broadly harmonised international standards, the challenge remains translating those standards into effective investigations, successful prosecutions and actual confiscation.
Monaco’s role in the presidency
Monaco currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, and the Strasbourg conference is among the key events of that term. The timing is notable: Monaco adopted its own 2026–2028 anti-corruption strategy earlier this month, itself developed in response to recommendations from the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body GRECO.
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Photo credit: Christian Lue, Unsplash