The Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) appeared before the European Parliament’s ECON and LIBE Committees, with Chair Bruna Szego presenting progress in setting up the new authority, outlining priorities, and responding to MEPs’ questions. Szego reiterated AMLA’s five long-term goals of ambition, cooperation, technology, communication and global leadership, and described AMLA as a “start-up authority” that has already established core governance, staffing and cooperation structures while building the foundations for a unified, risk-based EU AML/CFT system. Priorities for 2026 include focusing on level-2 mandates with the biggest impact on industry, preparing for AMLA’s direct supervision from 2028, developing standards and tools to strengthen financial intelligence unit (FIU) effectiveness and cross-border cooperation, and building an internal risk-analysis function to steer risk-based approaches at EU and national level; MEPs also raised issues including high-risk third-country listing, crypto-assets, drug-related money laundering and operational coordination with European law-enforcement agencies.