VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (United Kingdom)
John Hooper in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 July 2012
The Vatican has scraped through an independent international test of its financial transparency.
The Council of Europe said it was either “non-compliant” or “partially compliant” in 23 out of a total of 45 areas. But its report showed the Vatican had received “compliant” or “largely compliant” grades on nine of the 16 “key and core” recommendations for combatting money-laundering and terrorist financing.
The report says the Holy See still has to make important reforms before it can reach international standards of financial transparency. The Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), popularly known as the Vatican bank, was at the centre of an international scandal over alleged money-laundering and shady banking practices in the 1980s and it was not until April 2011 that the Holy See passed a law aimed at improving its financial transparency.
The Council of Europe’s committee of experts, known as Moneyval, said: “The Holy See has come a long way in a very short period … But further important issues still need addressing in order to demonstrate that a fully effective regime has been instituted in practice.”
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