Madam President, the fight against financial crime and, in particular, crime involving money laundering, will feature at various points in today’s plenary sitting, and this reflects the political importance of the legal instruments which the European Union wishes to establish for the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice. Following the creation of the internal market and the corresponding liberalisation of capital and of financial services, the Union has committed itself to the fight against money laundering. This is a complex crime, which requires another, original, crime to have taken place, resulting in illegal profits that people attempt to recycle into normal, legal economic life. Money laundering, which is the final destination for the proceeds of international crime and a consequence of the globalisation of the economy and of the gradual liberalisation of trade, is at the heart of organised crime, as stated in the Tampere conclusions, and is often the result of drug trafficking. It is a sobering thought that the fight to end this activity involves seizing the proceeds of the original crime, which are later disguised as respectable wealth. The only way to ensure that this fight is effective is through international cooperation, which in Europe, in the face of international crime, takes the form of judicial cooperation between all the Member States. This report, therefore, highlights the measures proposed by the French Presidency, which, in conjunction with the Portuguese Presidency, has moved ahead with initiatives to approximate legislation, in line with the Tampere Council conclusions. The Treaty of Amsterdam has also been implemented, not forgetting the good work that the Commission has carried out in this area and the commitment and clear thinking of Commissioner Vitorino. There is, therefore, coherence between the three initiatives that are the subject of my report and of the reports by Mrs Karamanou and Mrs Roure in that the framework decision forces the Member States to comply with the outcome, in that Europol’s competence is extended to cover money laundering in terms of investigations and in that a convention improves mutual legal assistance. We are therefore heading in the right direction for the creation of a broad, effective legal framework, which will at least limit this type of crime. My report clearly supports the crux of the rationale behind the framework decision, with proposals that seek fundamentally to enable Member States to confiscate goods gained from serious crimes and to force them to punish offenders committing money-laundering crimes and to legislate against them, without the flexibility offered by the loopholes in previous legal instruments which made it easy for criminals to thumb their noses at the law and to control whole economies. We also support the result of the binding nature of the framework decision, which forces Member States to harmonise their laws for the common good whilst being subject to judicial supervision by the Court of Justice. The report also contains some criticism, however, of the French proposal. Why should only a part of the previous joint action be transposed, which would leave these measures split into weak and strong legislation due to their different natures, highlighting the fragility of joint action? Why not accept straightaway the complete transposal of the whole set into the framework decision, as stated in the amendments that I proposed, Nos 9, 12, 13 and 14? Nor do we feel that tracing and confiscating goods should be restricted to cases in which the original crimes are classed as serious. This would open up a totally unjustifiable and huge area of law consisting of crimes that will not be prosecuted at all. Hence Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Lastly, although I must reiterate my appreciation of the French and Portuguese initiatives under the genuinely broader scope that Amsterdam, despite everything, has provided – and let us be frank about this, the Commission has been able to turn this to good advantage – there are still such differences in the origin and the effectiveness of the various judicial methods, directives, joint actions, framework decisions, conventions and international conventions that it is becoming urgent to communitise judicial, criminal and civil law, and thereby create an area of justice at the service of freedom and security. It is a shame that this is not already a priority in the reform of the Treaties, since the current IGC is at the mercy of the weight of the various Member States and of the measures that they wish to implement... We nevertheless believe that the public will shortly be in a position to demand this new aspect of Europe. They will be able to force through a revision of the Treaties that is concerned with their genuine interests and we believe that this revision will indeed be carried out in the name of freedom, security and justice.

Political group: PSE