15. Isconvincedthat,inthefightagainstillegalcrops,negotiatedandagreed solutions,agrarian reform
and alternative crops, together with criminal proceedings against traffickers and money launderers, shouldtakeprecedenceovercrop-sprayingcampaigns;believesinthisregardthattheUnionmusttakethenecess-ary steps to secure an end to the large-scale use of chemical herbicides and prevent the introduction ofbiological agents such as Fusarium oxysporum , given the dangers of their use to human health and the
environment alike;
16. Highlights the importance of strengthening regional cooperation and dialogue on the basis of the
principle of international coresponsibility, given that past experience in the fight against illegal crops hasshown that tackling this problem in one country alone merely serves to transfer it to neighbouring coun-tries;
17. Stresses the need to step up inter-regional cooperation to curb and stamp out drug trafficking and
combat money laundering; in this respect, the European Union ought to support Colombia’s request tosign the Strasbourg Convention;
18. CallsontheVenezuelangovernmenttocooperatewiththeColombiangovernmentinjointlyestab-
lishingmechanismswhichwillmakeitpossibletoresolvetheborderproblemsrelatingtothefightagainstdrug production and trafficking;
19. Urges theColombiangovernmenttofollowtheapproach usedinthetalkswiththeFARCinestab-
lishing dialogue with the other guerrilla groups with a view to promoting the principles of neutrality andtransparency and thus earning the support of the various armed groups for planned programmes andprojects;
20. Urges all the armed groups to support a humanitarian agreement under which they would cease
kidnapping, release their hostages, refrain from committing terrorist acts, from recruiting under-age sup-porters and from carrying out attacks on the civilian population, and conclude a serious ceasefire agree-ment;
21. Reiterates itssupportfortheOfficeoftheUNHighCommissionerforHumanRightsanditsefforts
to secure a humanitarian agreement in Colombia;
22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments
of Colombia, Venezuela and of the mediating countries.
13. Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime (MDG)
A5-0398/2000
European Parliament resolution on the report of the Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime
(10972/2/1999 Ndash C5-0039/2000 Ndash 1999/0916(COS))
The European Parliament,
Rdash having regard to the report of the Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime (10972/2/1999 Rdash
C5-0039/2000),
Rdash having regard to the Joint Action of 5 December 1997, adopted by the Council on the basis of Arti-
cleK.3oftheTreatyonEuropeanUnion,establishingamechanismforevaluating theapplicationand
implementation at national level of international undertakings in the fight against organised crime(1),
Rdash having regard Articles 29, 31, 32, 35, 36 and 39 of the Treaty on European Union,
(1) OJ L 344, 15.12.1997, p. 7.C 267/78 EN21.9.2001 Official Journal of the European Communities
Thursday 1 February 2001
Rdash havingregardtothejointactionsadoptedbytheCouncilon29June1998onthebasisofArticleK.3
of the Treaty on European Union on good practice in mutual legal assistance in criminal matters(1)
and on the creation of a European Judicial Network(2),
Rdash having regard to conclusions Nos 30 (first part), 33, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 43, 46, 48, 51, 52, 54, 55
and 57 of the Tampere European Council,
Rdash having regard to the European Union strategy for the beginning of the new millennium Rdash the pre-
vention and control of organised crime(3),
Rdash having regard totheEuropolreportof1February 2000ontheEUorganisedcrime situationin1998
(Doc. 14119/1/99),
Rdash having regard to the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on
mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters (COM(2000) 495),
Rdash having regard to the French Presidency’s programme of action against crime and judicial cooperation
in criminal matters,
Rdash having regard to the conventions and other acts on judicial cooperation and mutual assistance in
criminal matters and, in particular, the relevant Council of Europe and European Union instruments,
Rdash having regard to its previous resolutionson judicial cooperation in criminal matters,Rdash havingregardtoitsopinionof20November1997onthedraftjointactionestablishingamechanism
forevaluatingtheapplicationandimplementationatnationallevelofinternationalundertakingsinthefight against organised crime(
4),
Rdash having regard to Rule 47(1) of its Rules of Procedure,Rdash having regard to the report of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home
Affairs (A5-0398/2000),
A. noting that, in the report, the subjects chosen for the first round of evaluations are the delays in the
operation of the systemfor mutual legal assistance and urgent requests for the seizure of assets,
B. whereastheinhabitantsoftheMemberStateshavearighttoexpecttheUniontotakeeffectiveaction
againstthegrowing threatsposedtotheir freedomandrights bycrime, inparticular themostseriousoffences andorganised crime, whether they are committedby indigenousgroups or foreign or mixedgroups,
C. whereas, in order to tackle these threats, a radically new joint effort is needed aimed at fighting and
preventing crime and criminal organisations throughout the territories of the Member States and
whereas this effort must include the mobilisation of judicial resources,
D. whereas effective judicial cooperation in criminal matters is likely to help uphold the principle of
sovereignty against criminal organisations which are determined to show disregard for governmentstructures, democracy and the rules of the legal economy in Member States,
E. whereas, at present, the loopholes and shortcomings of existing national legal systems and interna-
tional agreements in criminal matters, as well as the conflicts and differing definitions of jurisdictionarising from the adherence to the principle of sovereignty, can give rise to areas and situations ofimpunity for those responsible for crimes and the proceeds from criminal activities,
(1) OJ L 191, 7.7.1998, p. 1.
(2) OJ L 191, 7.7.1998, p. 4.
(3) OJ C 124, 3.5.2000, p. 1.
(4) OJ C 371, 8.12.1997,p. 201.21.9.2001 EN C 267/79 Official Journal of the European Communities
Thursday 1 February 2001
F. noting with concern that certain areas of criminal activity are at present more profitable and entail
fewer risks (e.g. high-tech crime or environmental crimes), are covered in many cases by milder legalprovisions and are given lower priority by national bodies responsible for implementing laws,
G. whereas the European Union’sneedswith regard tojudicial cooperationandcriminal mattersnowgo
well beyond mere exchanges of information or evidence and transfers of persons,
H. notingwith satisfactionthesuccessfullaunchoftheEuropean Judicial Network’sactivities anditsfirst
pilot projects, and encouraging the national contact points andtheir administrations tobecome moreand more closely involved in the network’sactivities,
I. whereastheTreatyonEuropeanUnionprovidesforthepossibilityofestablishingacorpusofcriminal
law provisions, in particular on organised crime, whose elements (criminal acts and penalties) will bederived from the approximation of rules between the Member States,
J. whereas prime importanceisattached inthe Treaty tojudicial cooperationincriminal matters,which
includes cooperation in relation to proceedings and the enforcement of decisions and ensuring com-patibility in rules applicable, as a means of achieving the objective of providing citizens with a highlevel of safety within an area of freedom, security and justice,
K. noting with deep concern that those in the legal sphere responsible for cross-border procedures are
often required simultaneously to apply a vast number of conventions and laws relating to differentgeographical areas and laying down different procedures or responses to the problems arising, andthat these operators do not have easy access to laws on legal assistance in criminal matters or clearinstructions on the law to be applied in dealing with incoming and outgoing requests,
L. noting the lack of uniform interpretation of the various conventions in the Member States both in
decisions on the legal assistance to be given and in judicial rulings on the admissibility of requests,
M. noting with concern that the absence of any sanction mechanism against states which fail to fulfil
(or do not fulfil within the appointed time-limit) their obligations under an international conventionor agreement which they have signed diminishes the system’s credibility in the eyes of operators andundoubtedlyhas an adverse effect on crime prevention policies,
N. whereas the mutual evaluation mechanism established as part of the action plan against organised
crime approved in Amsterdam in June 1997 can be considered, per se, as a significant step forward,together with the establishment of the European Judicial Network and other initiatives to moderniseand increase the effectiveness of systemsto prevent and combat organised crime,
O. notingthattheCouncil’sreporttotheEuropeanParliamentonlycoversfiveEuropeanUnionMember
States, but that other documents relating to other countries have been made available in the mean-time,
P. welcoming the decision taken by a number of Member States which have already been the subject of
an evaluation to bring forward the most urgent reforms and improvements in respect of their ownsystem,
Q. whereas, nonetheless, monitoring of compliance by the Member States with their obligations in the
fight against organised crime should, in the long run, be the responsibility of the Court of Justice of
the European Communities and whereas the introduction of any other monitoring system should be
seen as a provisional measure,
R. whereas the traditionalsystemofjudicial cooperation in criminal matters,basedonthe ‘request’ prin-
ciple, is slow, cumbersome and produces rather poor results,
S. sharing the Commission’sview that the principle of mutual recognition of decisions in criminal mat-
ters,basedontheMember States’mutualtrustineachother’ssystems,leadstoaproperevaluationofthe legitimacy, equivalence, adequacy and validity of provisions and of the application of laws, con-cepts which are fundamentalto the effective operation of judicial cooperation in criminal matters,C 267/80 EN21.9.2001 Official Journal of the European Communities
Thursday 1 February 2001
T. whereas solutionsneed to be foundas a matter of urgency on the questions
Rdash raised by those active in the legal sphere, who are involved in practical work in the field of
judicial cooperation in criminal matters;
Rdash raised by Member States which do not respect their obligations under existing conventions and
other agreements;
Rdash linked to the principle of respect for individuals and their fundamental rights and freedoms, in
particular personsaccusedorsentencedandvictims,whoshouldundernocircumstancesbetrea-ted better or worse in international cooperation proceedings than in national proceedings,
1. Reiterates that effective judicial cooperation in criminal matters can help uphold the principle of
sovereignty against criminal organisations which are determined to show disregard for government struc-tures, democracy and the rules of the legal economy in Member States;
2. NoteswithconcernthattheCouncil’sreport totheEuropeanParliamenthighlights, amongthemost
serious difficulties, the following with reference to certain countries:
Rdash political control of letters rogatory or authorising role of the executive authority regarding the action
to be taken on requests for legal assistance, to the detriment of the hitherto acknowledged possibilityof direct transmission between judicial authorities;
Rdash possibility of misusing appeals as a delaying tool, duplication of procedures or procedures that are
unnecessarily complex for those carrying out investigations;
Rdash absence of an effective record keeping and control system regarding the number and functioning of
assistance procedures (statistics, monitoring of procedures, databanks);
Rdash inadequate human and financial resources;
Rdash adverse effect of the application of the dual criminality requirement;
Rdash lack of comprehensive and clear guidelines from the central authorities for the operation of interna-
tional legal assistance and need to redefine their role;
and calls on the Council and the Member States to take all the necessary legislative and budgetary mea-
sures toremedy these problems,in keeping with the provisionsofthe Treaty onEuropean UnionandtheTampere conclusionson the area of security and justice;
3. Expects the results of the evaluations in respect of the remaining countries to be forwarded without
delay;
4. CallsforArticle35oftheTreatyonEuropeanUniontoberevisedsothat,inthelongrun,theCourt
of Justice of the European Communities is given the power to decide whether the Member States complywith their obligations under conventions, agreements and European law, including Council of Europeinstruments, with regard to judicial cooperation in criminal matters; this should also include the powerto issue enforceable decisions and to adopt any other necessary provisions, such as the establishment of
time-limits;
5. Calls for the Union in due course to set up, pending the necessary approximation of criminal laws
andtherelevantpenalties,aPublicProsecutor’sOfficewithjurisdictionovertheMemberStates’territoryasawhole,assistedbynationalinvestigatoryauthoritiesforthemostseriouscasesofcross-bordercrime,andin particular organised crime, trafficking in human beings, exploitation ofwomenand children, terrorism,drug and arms trafficking, money laundering and fraud affecting the Communitybudget;
6. Calls on the Council, as a matter of urgency, to establish the list of international legal instruments
providing an overall hierarchical framework of obligations currently applying to the individual MemberStates and to lay downguidelines regarding compliance with deadlines;21.9.2001 EN C 267/81 Official Journal of the European Communities
Thursday 1 February 2001
7. Callsforthefollowingtobedrawnupandmadeavailabletojudgesandpublicprosecutors,possibly
through the European Judicial Network or Eurojust:
(a) a centralised documentation instrument which may be consulted at all times, containing the relevant
legislation on judicial cooperation in criminal matters, and taking account of any protocols, annexes,declarations, reservations and other subsequent restrictions and amendments, as well as details of thechannels to be used and standard formsfor forwarding requests for legal assistance;
(b) eventually, a European electronic register of final decisions and orders issued in criminal matters and
of procedures currently pending before national authorities to facilitate the implementation of the
principle of mutual recognition and improve coordination of criminal prosecution activities, inter alia
with a view to the execution of cumulative sentences and the bearing of related costs;
8. Callsfordetermined action tobe takentoresolve the problemoflinguistic barriers affecting judicial
cooperation in criminal matters, for example by selecting arrangements based on a restricted number ofworking languages, following the example and practice of international organisations such as the UN, theCouncil of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights;
9. Calls on the Council to consider including, among the ‘appropriate measures’ to be adopted at the
end of each evaluation cycle, indirect sanctions against Member States whose behaviour is deemed not tocomply with the principles of loyalty and efficiency in judicial assistance in criminal matters: such sanc-tionscouldinclude,inparticular, restrictionsontheirparticipationinCommunityandUnionprogrammesin the field of justice and action to combat crime and provisions to ensure that procedures are broughtinto line with agreements concluded and the rules on good conduct;
10. Calls for the future Eurojust unit to be open to all the applicant countries and, possibly in due
course, toallthe Council ofEurope member statesin order toavoid creating new obstaclestothe properfunctioning of judicial cooperation;
11. Welcomes some of the points contained in the ‘EU strategy for the beginning of the new millen-
nium Rdash the prevention and control of organised crime’ and, in particular, considers the following to be
priority issues:
(a) improvingstatisticaldata(collection,analysis,accesstovariouscategories,useandexchange)ontrans-
national crime, partly through mutual evaluation;
(b) review of criminal laws of the Member States, partly through the process of mutual evaluation, and
efforts aimed at approximation with regard to the mostserious crimes at the sustained rate proposedin the ‘strategy’ (one offence per presidency);
(c) speeding up and intensifying the process of mutual evaluation on the basis of agreed standards and
stableandadequateresources;reaching agreementwiththeCommissionandParliamentonthechoiceofthemesfortheevaluationexercises; establishingongoingevaluationmechanismsmakingitpossibletocarry outevaluations on differentaspects simultaneouslywithout causing delaysofseveral years inthe consideration of individual countries;
(d) approvaloftheprincipleofmutualrecognitionoffinalrulings,ordersandotherenforceabledecisions
of judicial authorities in criminal matters with a view to their execution without delay and by meansof procedures that respect individual rights;
(e) provisionofadequateresources,inparticularfortraining,newmeansofinvestigatingorganisedcrime
and the tracing of the proceeds of crime;
(f) speeding upexchanges ofinformationandcutting redtape inrelationtothetracing, freezing, seizure
and confiscation of the proceeds of crime, in particular where the measures are to be taken in aMember State other than the applicant, without prejudice to the objective of achieving mutual recog-nition;
(g) speedy ratification of the conventionslisted in Recommendation 27 of the EU Strategy for the begin-
ning of the new millennium, as well as the new convention of 29 May 2000 on legal assistance incriminal matters;C 267/82 EN21.9.2001 Official Journal of the European Communities
Thursday 1 February 2001
(h) withdrawal by the European Union Member States of all reservations expressed in international con-
ventions;
(i) consideration of proposals for accelerated extradition and fast track procedures, subject to a mutual
evaluation exercise regarding fulfilmentby Member States of their obligations;
(j) fullinvolvementoftheapplicantcountriesinthestrategytocombatorganisedcrime andinactionto
improve judicial assistanceincriminal mattersandsupportforregional cooperationagainstorganisedcrime;
12. Supportsthelegislative initiative takenbythe Commissionandthe Member Statestospecify, mod-
ernise and give an adequate legal status to instruments, in particular joint actions, adopted as part of the1997 action plan against organised crime, on the basis of rational, simple and transparent codificationcriteria for the benefit of users;
13. Urges the Member States, pending the harmonisation of criminal laws and the achievement of
greater compatibility of procedures, to guarantee the greatest possible degree of practical mutual cooper-ation between judicial authorities;
14. InstructsitsPresidenttoforwardthisresolutiontotheCouncil,theCommission,theparliamentsof
the applicant countries and the Council of Europe.
14. New frontiers in book production
A5-0005/2001
European Parliament resolution on new frontiers in book production: electronic publishing and
printing on demand (2000/2037(INI))
The European Parliament,
Rdash having regard to Article 151 of the EC Treaty,Rdash having regard to its resolution of 7 April 1995 on the establishment of a support programme in the
field of booksand reading (Ariane)(
1),
Rdash having regard to its resolution of 21 June 1996 on the adoption of a multiannual programme to
promote the linguistic diversity of the Communityin the information society(2),
Rdash having regard to its resolution of 30 January 1997 on the first European Commission report on the
consideration of cultural aspects in European Communityaction(3),
Rdash havingregardtoitsresolutionof13March1997ontheinformationsociety,cultureandeducation(4),
Rdash havingregardtoitsresolutionof24October1997ontheimpactofnewtechnologiesonthepressin
Europe(5),
Rdash having regard to its resolution of 14 May 1998 on the Commission Communication ‘A European
initiative in Electronic Commerce’(6),
Rdash having regard to its opinion of 9 October 1998 on the proposal for a European Parliament and
Council Decision amending Decision No2085/97/EC establishing a programme ofsupport, includingtranslation, in the field of booksand reading (Ariane)(
7)
(1) OJ C 109, 1.5.1995, p. 289.
(2) OJ C 198, 8.7.1996, p. 248.
(3) OJ C 55, 24.2.1997, p. 37.
(4) OJ C 115, 14.4.1997,p. 151.
(5) OJ C 339, 10.11.1997,p. 415.
(6) OJ C 167, 1.6.1998, p. 203.
(7) OJ C 328, 26.10.1998,p. 237.21.9.2001 EN C 267/83 Official Journal of the European Communities
Thursday 1 February 2001