EU Parliament tells crypto: show your wallet or get flagged 🪙

The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a nonbinding resolution urging the European Commission to place crypto assets, opaque ownership structures and digital tools at the center of its next anti-corruption strategy. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) called for stronger mechanisms to trace, freeze, confiscate and recover criminal proceeds linked to digital assets, framing the request as a complement to existing EU rules on illicit finance.

The resolution outlines Parliament's priorities for the Commission's anti-corruption strategy, which is intended to work alongside the bloc's anti-corruption directive that entered into force in May. That directive harmonizes definitions of corruption offenses and sets minimum penalties across member states. The Commission is expected to adopt its anti-corruption strategy by the end of 2026.

Beyond asset recovery, MEPs pressed for stricter rules on public procurement and grants, more harmonized standards for conflicts of interest, clearer lobbying rules and common rules for political financing. They also urged stronger protections for whistleblowers and investigative journalists who document misconduct tied to digital finance tools.

Thursday's vote signals Parliament's intent to embed crypto-specific transparency requirements into the broader anti-corruption framework, even though the resolution itself is nonbinding. The Commission will now weigh those priorities as it drafts the strategy ahead of the 2026 deadline, including how to operationalize tracing and recovery procedures across jurisdictions.