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