"It's absolutely essential to coordinate anti-money laundering at international level across different countries. There are serious problems of communication – within each country – between different agents: the supervisors, the judiciary," Draghi told journalists on Thursday.
"What's been done so far is trying to give some soft power to the EBA (European Banking Authority). I think that we should go well beyond this and ideally create a European authority for anti-money laundering, with powers, with jurisdiction that would empower the authority to overcome the obstacles that today hamper communication and an effective policy against money laundering," the ECB president said.
The ECB Governing Council, consisting of central bankers of 19 euro zone countries, held its out-of-town meeting in Vilnius on June 5-6.
The Council hold regular meeting in Frankfurt but also hold a meeting in one of the euro zone capitals at least once a year. It was the first Council meeting in Vilnius.