Mr President, Mr Kirkhope’s report has the virtue of drawing the Council’s attention to a dreadful criminal activity. While I support the action stipulated by the report, and I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, I still think the proposed measures do not match up to the scale of the problem before us. Communication technologies transform data. The Internet thus has formative and demultiplying effects on the trade and traffic in child pornography. This trafficking is on a scale hitherto unknown in terms of its extent and the geographical areas covered. It is an urgent state of affairs, and specific action must be proposed in order to deal with the networks that exist. In all the States of the Union, individual paedophile acts are suppressed, but ignorance and inefficiency still reign in the suppression of networks. What we have to deal with here are ephemeral, evolving sites, which adapt constantly and which are complicated to monitor. This state of affairs makes it essential to draw up a survey of paedophile networks within the countries of the European Union. The existence of these networks confirms the need for a common judicial area. Once again, the rapporteur urges the Union to approach the Member States, and ask them to make an effort to harmonise their national legislation in this area. I share his opinion but, given the cross-border nature of the problem, the response must be at Union level. The common judicial area does exist with Europol, Schengen and Eurodac. Let it be noted that it is used primarily, and indeed exclusively, to control the flow of migration and to suppress illegal immigration. But even if action was undertaken in each Member State to create specialised units working in liaison, as the report advocates, that would not solve the problem of the networks because their work would still be restricted by national borders. There is no problem identifying the parties involved in trafficking child pornography, who are often repeat offenders. What is needed is prevention, in order to counter their activities and to dismantle their networks. The European Union must provide itself with a suitable structure, a European instrument to enforce information exchange and action. This instrument must be such as to make it possible to address States directly in order to urge them to pass on information, but also to issue orders so that the networks can be dismantled. The Union should be in a position to apply penalties to any State which does not fulfil its criminal law obligations in the matter of combating paedophilia. The Dutch police have drawn up a file of several hundred children from a CD-ROM containing 10 000 images or sequences of child pornography available on the Internet. Interpol has acknowledged having a file of 800 photos. Why are these valuable documents not used? Who are these children and what is being done to locate them? If there are records of offenders, it must be possible to keep records of victims. It is our duty, ethically, as human beings, to do everything we can to find them. For all these reasons I think the European Union must make combating this form of crime a priority. Mr Kirkhope’s report is filled with good intentions, but further proposals must be made in order to deal with the present situation. I think the Commission and the Council should take action which is up to the task of dealing with the high stakes of this crime that affects thousands of innocents.

Political group: GUE-NGL