TERRORIST FINANCE: DUTCH TO PUSH FOR ECOFIN

C O N F I D E N T I A L THE HAGUE 000639 SIPDIS STATE FOR EB/ESC/TFS/GLASS, S/CT (NAVRATIL), INR/EC(BROOKS),EUR/ERA(BOLY),EUR/UBI(HOLLIDAY) TREASURY FOR ZARATE JUSTICE FOR OIA/FRIEDMAN FBI FOR TERRORIST FINANCING TASK FORCE BRUSSELS ALSO FOR LEGATT PARIS ALSO FOR USOECD E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/12/09 TAGS: ETTC PTER EFIN NL EUN SUBJECT: TERRORIST FINANCE: DUTCH TO PUSH FOR ECOFIN ACTIVISM REF: A) The Hague 553 B) 03 The Hague 3117 The Ambassador met with Finance Ministry Treasurer General van Dijkhuizen on March 11 to urge concrete actions to improve the European Union's ability to take collective action against terrorist finances. Van Dijkhuizen stated that the Netherlands wants the U.S.-EU Summit in Dublin to issue a declaration setting forth concrete objectives for increasing cooperation and improving effectiveness in efforts in counter terrorist finance. According to van Dijkhuizen, the Foreign Ministry has the lead role in negotiating this issue but pledged that Finance Minister Zalm would try to push the ECOFIN to take complementary and supportive actions. As a first step, Zalm plans draft a letter hat he hopes will be cosigned by his UK, Spanish, and Danish counterparts -- to ECOFIN noting the continuing importance of combating terrorist finance and the need for Finance Ministers to be proactive in ensuring effective EU action. This will serve to put the issue on the ECOFIN agenda and set the stage for more concerted attention in the coming weeks. Although the question of which entities will be designated by the EU and how the EU designation system works are primarily Foreign Ministry questions, finance ministries play an active role in the FATF and have a leadership role to play in determining how designations are effectively implemented by financial institutions and other entities. In some countries, such as the Netherlands, finance ministries also have customs and other law enforcement bodies under their jurisdictions whose input and support is necessary to designations' preparation and follow up. Sobel