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14 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 6 JULY 2022 EUROPE These articles are part of a content series called Ewropej. This is a multi-newsroom initiative part-funded by the European Parliament to bring the work of the EP closer to the citizens of Malta and keep them informed about matters that affect their daily lives. These articles reflect only the authors' view. The European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. THE EU has to come up with a clear and stringent solidarity mechanism to prepare for a shortfall of Russian gas deliveries next winter to avoid repeat- ing mistakes made in cooperation at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Ger- man conservative EU politician Man- fred Weber said. "We have to prepare for a difficult win- ter," Christian Democrat (CSU) Weber, who heads the conservative EEP faction in the European Parliament, told news- paper Tagesspiegel in an interview. "Europe urgently needs decisions on binding energy solidarity," Weber said, adding he hopes to not see a situation of national egoism prevail like in the early stages of the pandemic, when EU borders were shut and most states tried to procure protective equipment like facial masks on their own. "Europe had failed at the time," Weber said, arguing that this could not be re- peated next autumn, when a gas supply crisis could become more severe. "Given Putin's apparent determina- tion, we must expect him to throttle down or completely stop deliveries," Weber said, arguing that Germany therefore should "use all forms of ener- gy production we have," which includes nuclear power. The EU should hold a special leaders' summit in July to decide on binding gas allocation mechanisms aimed at a joint management of the bloc's gas storages. "Gas arriving in Europe has to be shared in a fair way," Weber said. An immediate cut to Russian gas sup- plies could be partly cushioned for af- fected countries by the EU's Secure Gas Supplies regulation, introduced in 2017. It regulates that member states assist each other with gas supplies in case of a shortage and the countries are required to put in place the necessary techni- cal, legal and financial arrangements to make the provision of 'solidarity gas' possible in practice. So far, Germany has made legal arrangements for gas assistance only with Denmark and Aus- tria. THE European Union reached an agreement to strengthen con- trol over cryptocurrency oper- ations to prevent anonymous transfers and money launder- ing. The new rules oblige crypto platforms to collect the data of the sender and receiver of the transferred funds, regardless of the amount of the operation. The agreement reached on Thursday by the negotiators of the European Parliament and the Council, comes to reinforce the control of operations in an attempt to give greater trans- parency to the trade of cryp- tocurrencies and avoid anon- ymous transfers that facilitate money laundering and the fi- nancing of terrorism. The new rules will still have to be formally approved by the plenary sessions of the Europe- an Parliament and the European Council for their implementa- tion. The adoption of this rule called "Travel Rule" was pro- posed by the FATF (Internation- al Financial Action Task Force). "The new rules will make it easier to investigate certain transfers linked to criminal ac- tivities and to identify the real person behind those transac- tions," said Ernest Urtasun, MEP for En Comú Podem and rapporteur for the European Parliament when referring to this reform of the regulation of transfer of funds. Obligations of Crypto Operators Cryptocurrency exchanges and digital wallet service pro- viders (including non-hosted wallets) will have to provide this information to authorities when requested during investigations into criminal activity. Providers must verify transfers to or from their customers. The approved reform will also "help apply the financial sanc- tions" imposed by the EU on Russian oligarchs in response to the invasion of Ukraine, the MEP said. So the friends of Vladimir Putin will not be able to circumvent the European and American sanctions by us- ing funds in cryptocurrencies. To execute these measures and avoid the risks of being cir- cumvented by individuals and criminal groups, crypto compa- nies will have to apply a series of adequate policies, procedures and internal control mecha- nisms from now on. Unification of Policies Against Money Laundering All member states of the com- munity must also align with these new rules and incorpo- rate them into their respective national legislation. In this way, European laws against mon- ey laundering and terrorism in these areas can be harmonized and unified. The agreement provides that the EU undertakes to create a public registry of cryptocur- rency service provider compa- nies that violate this regulation. Likewise, it will serve to issue a black list of operators not au- thorized to operate within the common space shared by the European bloc. The EU data protection regu- lation (GDPR) will also be ap- plied to the cryptocurrency sec- tor to guarantee that the crypto asset markets adapt these new operating rules to the policies and procedures that apply to their clients. EU parliament's conservative group head calls for binding energy solidarity rules German MEP Manfred Weber heads the conservative EEP faction in the European Parliament EU agrees to regulate cryptocurrency transfers