August 9, 2026

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The European Post

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August 9, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
New EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before AntalyaNew EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before Antalya

AMLA Frankfurt Hub Reaches Staffing Milestone Ahead of Direct Watch

Dagur Hákonarson
Policy Monitor, Justice and Fundamental Rights

Frankfurt: The Anti-Money Laundering Authority is on course to reach an initial staff complement of three hundred by the end of June, a milestone that brings the new agency to roughly seventy percent of its planned core size ahead of its direct supervision mandate over the most exposed financial entities from 2028. Recruitment, location-build and methodological design have all run in parallel through the first eighteen months of operations.

The Authority was established by Regulation (EU) 2024/1620 to act as the centre of a single anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing supervisory system. Its responsibilities span direct supervision of forty selected obligated entities, indirect oversight of national supervisors for the remaining financial sector, the coordination of financial intelligence unit cooperation, and the development of regulatory technical standards under the new Single Rulebook.

The selection methodology for the forty entities is the most operationally consequential design choice still to be finalised. Under the Authority’s draft framework, eligibility depends on cross-border activity, asset size and inherent risk classification. A consultation that closed last month attracted sixty-two responses from the banking and payments sectors. The principal industry concern is the proposed weighting of customer-base risk indicators, which would push several specialised cross-border payment institutions into the supervised cohort even when their absolute exposures are limited.

A second design question concerns the relationship between the Authority and national supervisors. The Single Rulebook approach gives the Frankfurt body direct rule-making power, but enforcement on indirectly supervised entities remains in national hands. Several Member States have expressed concern at the prospect of divergent enforcement intensity, and a joint supervisory action protocol is in preparation to align baseline expectations across the network.

Recruitment has been the surprise of the first phase. The Authority has filled senior posts with secondees from the European Banking Authority, the European Central Bank’s supervisory arm and a small number of national agencies. Mid-grade investigators have been more difficult to attract, in part because of the highly competitive market for compliance specialists in the German financial centre and in part because of the Authority’s relatively rigid grade structure. The Executive Board has authorised a temporary uplift for hard-to-recruit profiles that will run through 2027.

Financial intelligence unit cooperation is the third strand. The new FIU coordination mechanism replaces a network that had been criticised in successive Court of Auditors reports for fragmented data exchange. The Authority’s role is to maintain the FIU.net successor system, set joint analytical standards and coordinate strategic intelligence products. Early pilots on virtual asset tracking and trade-based money laundering are reported to be progressing, though a formal evaluation will not be available until 2027.

What remains to be tested is whether direct supervision changes outcomes. Past failures in the Union’s anti-money laundering record were not always attributable to weak rules. They reflected fragmented enforcement, asymmetric information sharing and political reluctance to act on cross-border cases. A single supervisor with rule-making power and direct intervention rights addresses each of those elements, but the proof will lie in the first set of supervisory decisions, which are not expected before late 2028. For now, the Frankfurt project is on schedule.

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