Anti-money laundering and single access point: two new infringement procedures for the Meloni government

Brussels – Italy failed to notify the EU of the measures implemented to combat money laundering that could be used to finance terrorism. For this reason, the Meloni government now faces a brand-new infringement procedure, with a request to submit all necessary documentation to Brussels within two months to comply with EU regulations.

 The Sixth Directive on anti-money laundering mainly deals with organisational and institutional issues of the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism preventive framework, which are addressed respectively to the Member States, their supervisory authorities, and Financial Intelligence Units. The directive gave Member States until 10 July 2025 to guarantee comprehensive access to information on the beneficial ownership of legal persons, trusts, or similar arrangements, including access by persons with a legitimate interest. To date, Italy is among the 11 Member States that have not declared complete transposition by this first legal deadline and are facing the procedure. (In addition to Italy, the other Member States facing this procedure are Belgium, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden.) 

A second letter of formal notice, and consequent initiation of new infringement proceedings, was sent to Rome for the failure to fully transpose the Omnibus directive on the Single European Access Point (ESAP), which aims to create a centralised mechanism offering easily accessible, comparable, and usable public information to investors and other interested parties. As in the case of the anti-money laundering directive, the states had 10 July 2025 as the last day to comply, and the Meloni government was unable to be ready by the date.  Hence, the request is to bring the standards into line with those required by European standards.