By Henrietta Billings - 11th July 2005
Europe must move to implement a crackdown on terrorist finances following last week's bombings in London, the EU presidency has urged.
UK finance minister Gordon Brown has urged the EU to adopt anti-terror plans agreed on after September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on the US.
At a Tuesday meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels, national governments agreed on plans to speed up the enforcement of rules to seize terrorist assets and shut down suspect bank accounts.
“Today finance ministers reaffirmed that just as there will be no safe haven for those who perpetrate terrorism, there will be no hiding place for those who finance terrorism,” Brown told journalists after the meeting.
“Across Europe we will act as one to send a message to terrorists that, while lives have ended, the cause of justice never dies. Terrorism will always be defeated by democracy.”
Brown said the UK and some other governments had invested in systems to clamp down on terrorist financing, but he warned that some countries outside the EU had more work to do.
“There are states outside the EU which have taken very little action despite what happened on September 11, in Spain and in the UK,” he said.
According to official sources, attention will focus on countries, including Nigeria, Burma and Nauru, which have been slow to act on suspected terrorist assets.
Brown also said the EU was "prepared to offer help" to countries without the technical systems in place to combat money laundering.
Terrorist financing is to be added to the agenda of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings later this year.
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