Madam President, international criminal networks have become considerably stronger and more organised in recent years. Factors such as globalisation can be seen to have enhanced the possibilities of laundering dirty money and the means of avoiding prosecution. According to figures released by the United Nations, 1 000 billion dollars are recycled every year through money laundering operations. Money laundering is a difficult offence to detect, and crime syndicates take advantage of every loophole in the various legal systems. As a result, international cooperation in police and judicial matters is the only way of effectively thwarting this illegal practice. At European level, mutual assistance in criminal matters has already, in general terms, seen the adoption of several texts, such as the Council of Europe’s Convention of 20 April 1959 and, very recently, the European Convention of 29 May 2000, for which our fellow MEP, Mr Di Pietro, acted as rapporteur. In the more specific area of combating money laundering, we could cite the Council Directive of 10 June 1991, as recently amended, for which our fellow MEP, Mr Lehne, acted as rapporteur. The initiative from the French Presidency that we are examining today is aimed at improving the two blanket conventions on mutual assistance in criminal matters that I have just mentioned, specifically in the field of combating money laundering. The convention that we have before us improves these earlier texts, and we welcome these improvements. By virtue of Article 2 of the draft Convention, the Member States can no longer decline to conduct searches or seize items by invoking the reservations set out in Article 5 of the Convention of 1959. Article 4 states that in order to facilitate enquiries, the Member States must take appropriate measures to promote the transfer and safekeeping of data relating to the existence, location and movement of the proceeds of crime, while Article 5 states that the Member States are required to furnish information on banking activities. Article 6, for its part, provides for the making of supplementary requests for mutual assistance, and Article 7 states that fiscal exceptions can no longer constitute a reason for refusing mutual assistance. One can only approve of the body of measures contained in this draft Convention. They respond to the concerns expressed by the Tampere European Council concerning the fight against money laundering, which is the very root of organised crime and which must be eradicated wherever it is found. It would seem to me that certain improvements could be proposed, and that is the point of my report. The non-invocability of banking and commercial secrecy in response to requests for mutual assistance is set down in Article 3. It would seem to me essential to extend this non-invocability to encompass the commercial and financial advice activities of lawyers and members of regulated legal professions, which due to their nature are not governed by professional secrecy. Furthermore, Article 8 of the draft Convention limits the reasons which Member States may invoke for refusing to provide assistance to “essential interests”. This represents progress, but for mutual assistance not to lose any of its impact in an area in which only rapid cooperation at European level can be of any meaning, it would seem worthwhile to only grant the Member State asked for information two months in which to make known its refusal to give assistance. Article 9 requires the Member States to set up integrated multidisciplinary teams at national level in order to enhance the efficiency of searches and promote information exchanges. I propose that a coordination unit be set up for these multidisciplinary teams. This unit could facilitate information exchanges between the relevant authorities in the Member States and encourage the selection and use of best practices. The sole aim of these proposals is to achieve mutual assistance that is as effective as possible and meets the challenges posed by organised crime, particularly in the field of money laundering.

Political group: PSE