US embassy cable - 04THEHAGUE639

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