STRASBOURG — Italy’s Bruna Szego was chosen as the chair of the EU’s new dirty-money watchdog on Monday following a three-hour hearing before the European Parliament’s economy and justice committees and an ensuing debate on the pick, three people close to the confidential talks told POLITICO.
Szego secured a majority to defeat rival candidates Marcus Pleyer of Germany and Jan Reinder De Carpentier of the Netherlands, despite lacking the support of the center-right European People’s Party, the largest group in the Parliament, or of the Greens, the people told POLITICO. (The EPP and the Greens had wanted Pleyer, the former chairman of the FATF, an international body that monitors anti-money laundering provisions.)
Szego, the only woman in the race, founded and leads the anti-money laundering (AML) supervision and regulation unit at the Bank of Italy, having previously headed its regulation and macroprudential analysis directorate. She sits on the EBA’s anti-money laundering standing committee; one of her strengths is linking macroprudential and AML risks.
