site.btaBulgaria Reports Progress in Action for Delisting as Money Laundering Risk Country

At a bilateral meeting with experts of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Luxembourg, Bulgarian Justice Minister Georgi Georgiev presented his country's progress in implementing recommendations for Bulgaria's removal from the FATF "grey list" of countries that are actively working with the Task Force to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing, Georgiev's Ministry said in a press release on Tuesday.

The Minister said Bulgaria had kept its promise to reform its criminal law with regard to counter-terrorism, measures against money laundering, forfeiture of criminal assets and corruption offences, with penal sanctions stiffened for legal persons. The relevant legislative amendments were enacted by Parliament in June and July and are already part of the legislation in force.

At the meeting in Luxembourg, Georgiev stressed that the Bulgarian Government attaches utmost importance to cooperation with FATF and Bulgaria's participation in the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL). 

"The Government prioritizes its commitment to our country's removal from the 'grey list'. Since January 2025 and to date, we have completed a number of significant reforms addressing recommendations contained in the MONEYVAL Report in May 2022," the Justice Minister pointed out. "The reforms will help enhance criminal law with an improved protection of Bulgarian society and economy against organized crime, corruption and other gains-generating offences, and for use of the financial system for terrorist financing." 

Georgiev presented to the FATF experts the revisions that have been passed and promulgated to the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Administrative Violations and Penalties Act, as well as a comprehensive reform of criminal law with a shift in the fundamental approach to criminalize terrorism. He emphasized that the legislative reform has been prepared with the pooled efforts of the Justice Ministry, judiciary officials, law enforcers and academics and has enlisted broad support at the Bulgarian Parliament.

At the meeting in Luxembourg, Bulgaria was also represented by officials of the Supreme Court of Cassation, the State Agency for National Security, the National Revenue Agency, the Financial Supervision Commission and the prosecution service.