Monaco’s elected body, the National Council, on Monday expressed its “regret” over what it claimed to be a further delay by the Government is presenting draft legislation for its consideration.
“Within the framework of the legislative changes envisaged by the Government following the publication of the report of the 5th round of evaluation and the recommendations of Moneyval, which placed the Principality of Monaco in the category “countries under enhanced surveillance”, several bills are (due) to be examined by the National Council. To date, only one text out of the four expected has reached the office of the Assembly. However, the legislative timetables mentioned on the one hand in the monitoring committee between the Government and the National Council, and on the other hand in the framework of the Coordination and Monitoring Committee of the National Strategy for the Fight against money laundering, in turn indicated the end of the session of spring as the objective for voting on these texts”
The National Council restated a previous criticism, by saying that the agenda of the public meetings of the National Council is an exclusive prerogative of the Assembly.
“The National Council intends to have the time necessary for a responsible study of these texts announced as voluminous and very technical, especially since, for most of them, they could have consequences important to certain aspects of the functioning of the Monegasque economy… At this stage, the Government has not, in this regard, met the deadlines announced, and therefore failed to honour its commitments. Under no circumstances can the National Council be held responsible for future deadlines for voting on these texts, since these bills have not yet still not been placed on the table of the Assembly.”
PHOTO: National Council President Brigitte Boccone-Pages
