Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I fully understand the frustration of Mr Di Pietro who, in a short space of time, has had to carry out an extraordinary amount of work in order to be able to submit this report to us today. Crime in the European Union has increased to such an extent that we cannot and must not content ourselves any longer with a step-by-step approach of mutual legal assistance in criminal affairs. The European Parliament is certainly not to blame for this. It is the governments of the Member States who have restricted the amount of leeway to this degree. As a result, the European Parliament is faced with an almost impossible task. One has to content oneself with the idea that all means, however slight, must be seized upon in order to set up better legal assistance. By way of paradox, I could say that it would be best if as little as possible was said about this report, for the clearer we make it that only very small steps are being taken, the more the world of crime will gloat and the more the acute imbalance between organised crime and the desperate lack of judicial cooperation will become obvious. I would therefore make an urgent appeal to the Council of Ministers to finally face reality, that is to say the fact that crime is developing faster than the law. The goal is, after all, to provide the judicial bodies – magistrates, in the first place, but also the citizens involved – with the instruments to fight crime without prejudice to the fundamental guarantees of defence and the general principles of human rights. If not, we will be fighting a running battle. I therefore advocate further harmonisation of criminal law in the EU Member States in the first instance. In my opinion, this is the only way to fight crime effectively across all Member States. As long as this harmonisation has not been achieved, however, we need to be consistent if we want to bring about mutual legal assistance. To this end, I had submitted an amendment stipulating that legal assistance can only be granted in the event of criminal prosecution instituted by the authorities based on facts which are punishable according to the national law of the petitioning party and the Member State petitioned. The content of my amendment is, in fact, echoed in Amendment No 43, which also stipulates this condition of accrual. This condition of accrual is essential since, in my opinion, the principle of nulla poena sine lege, legality in criminal law, must be observed. As such, any request for legal assistance concerning a hypothetical action which is not a crime in the petitioned Member State contravenes this principle of legality and thus the fundamental principles of justice in the petitioned Member State. Hence, it is extremely important that this condition of accrual be adopted. Finally, I would like to reiterate that Mr Di Pietro has, in my opinion, delivered sterling work by submitting a report which, within the limitations, offers all possible guarantees for safeguarding individual human rights and fundamental freedoms. If, however, we would like to give European citizens a greater sense of security, we need to step up our efforts in the field of judicial cooperation.

Political group: ELDR