Italy’s Bruna Szego has been elected president of the new EU black money watchdog – POLITICO

STRASBOURG — Bruna Szego from Italy was elected on Monday to chair the EU’s new dirty money watchdog after a three-hour hearing before the European Parliament’s Economics and Justice committees and a subsequent debate over the choice, three people close to the confidential talks told POLITICO.

Szego won a majority to defeat rival candidates Marcus Pleyer of Germany and Jan Reinder De Carpentier of the Netherlands, despite lacking support from the center-right European People’s Party, the largest faction in parliament, or from the Greens, the people told POLITICO . (The EPP and the Greens had wanted Pleyer, the former chairman of the FATF, an international body that oversees anti-money laundering provisions.)

Szego, the only woman in the race, created and led the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Supervisory and Regulation Unit at the Bank of Italy, having previously led the Directorate for Regulation and Macroprudential Analysis. She is a member of the EBA Standing Committee on Anti-Money Laundering; one of its strengths is linking macroprudential and AML risks.