In its latest clampdown against terrorism financing and money-laundering, the European Union agreed Tuesday that travellers carrying more than 10,000 euros (13,000 dollars) must declare themselves to EU customs officers.
The minimum amount, whether in cash or easily converted assets such as travellers' cheques, must be declared by anyone entering or leaving EU territory under the agreement reached by EU finance ministers at talks here.
"That's important in combatting terrorist financing," Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, told a news conference. "If the official lines of terrorist financing are difficult to use, then traditional cash couriers come into play," he said.
Controls currently vary among EU member states, with some countries imposing 15,000 euros as a limit but others such as Spain a lower figure of 6,000 euros. The agreement will pass into law following a second reading at the European Parliament, the EU's directly elected legislature.
Asked how the clampdown would be enforced, Zalm said European customs officers were being "far more intensive than (they) used to be because of terrorism issues".
"There are also dogs that can smell money, I'm told. In the Netherlands we have dogs who can smell hash and coke (cocaine), but you can also train them to smell money, because money stinks you know," the Dutch minister added. EU tax and customs commissioner Frits Bolkestein welcomed the ministers' accord to the proposals put forward by his department.
He said the proposals were "designed to prevent laundered money from reaching criminals and terrorists while at the same time not unduly interfering with the legitimate traveller".
By: N. Peter Kramer
