A4-0376/98

Resolution on the draft Council Resolution on guidelines and measures for the prevention of organised crime with reference to the establishment of a comprehensive strategy for combating it (9986/98 - C4-0494/98)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the draft Council Resolution (9986/98 - C4-0494/98),

- having regard to the action plan to combat organised crime ((OJ C 251, 15.8.1997, p.1.)),

- having regard to its resolution of 20 November 1997 on this action plan ((OJ C 371, 8.12.1997, p.183.)),

- having regard to Articles B, F, K.1(5) and (7) to (9), K.3(2), and K.6 of the EU Treaty,

- having regard to Articles 2, 6 and 29 of the EU Treaty, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and notably Article 29 which stresses the responsibility of the European Union to prevent and combat organised crime and views this as a key precondition for the gradual establishment of an area of freedom, security and law,

- having regard to its resolution of 24 January 1994 ((OJ C 20, 24.1.1994, p. 158.)) on small-scale crime in urban areas and its links with organised crime,

- having regard to its resolution of 6 October 1998 ((Minutes of that sitting, Part II, Item 8.)) on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a Union policy against corruption,

- having regard to the public hearing organised on 9 October 1997 by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs with representatives from LIBERA, the Italian anti-Mafia organisation,

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs (A4-0376/98),

A. whereas the Council has taken up the demand emphatically made by the European Parliament in its abovementioned resolution of 20 November 1997 that more attention should be paid to preventive aspects in combating organised crime and is now endeavouring to rectify this omission in the action plan,

B. whereas owing to the many forms assumed by organised crime, counter-measures cannot be limited to individual approaches (such as only repression) or individual aspects (such as only drugs-related crime), and whereas the measures taken to prevent the existence and development of organised crime must therefore be as comprehensive as possible,

C. whereas also a transfrontier approach is needed to combat organised crime and measures are therefore required at European level, since national counter-measures by themselves are not nearly sufficient,

D. whereas measures to combat organised crime must form part of an overall plan that is as comprehensive and coherent as possible and takes into account both preventive and repressive aspects, and whereas the draft should therefore not enter into competition with the action plan, and certainly not replace it, but rather reinforce its underlying orientation,

E. whereas, however, the recommendations of the action plan are regrettably being implemented only very slowly (so far only recommendations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 15, 19, 21 and 22 have been totally implemented) and implementation is considerably behind schedule: the deadlines for the full implementation of recommendations 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20 and 23 were not respected (the European Council meeting in Cardiff only extended the deadline for the implementation of recommendation 6 to the end of 1998); as far as recommendations 7, 8, 13, 14, 18, 25, 26, 29 and 30 are concerned, it is already very unlikely that they will be fully implemented by the end of 1998, as stipulated in the action plan,

F. whereas, in addition, there is a need to maintain the distinction between the concepts of organised crime and common non-organised crime; whereas, however, the links and connections between them reveal themselves in many forms,

G. whereas the willingness to take swift and effective countermeasures at European level is clearly not keeping pace with the spread of organised crime in Europe and there is an increasing risk that individual Member States - and thus the European Union itself - will be permeated or undermined by organised crime, at least in some sectors,

H. whereas the draft can be viewed only as an initial response to the extremely complex problem of prevention which can only be a starting point and not the final stage in the debate about prevention,

I. whereas civil society in particular must make a greater contribution towards combating organised crime and whereas, given the particular dangers faced by the democratic rule of law and the market economy if organised crime manages to permeate public administrations or the legal economy through corruption, measures to prevent corruption are of central importance,

J. whereas preventive measures against organised crime can lead to a more advanced degree of state intervention which poses the threat of an extension of state surveillance, unless effective corrective mechanisms and restrictions on state intervention are set in place to ensure that the private sphere and family life, the home and communications are sufficiently respected,

K. whereas preventive measures - in particular those based on technological and electronic methods - must meet the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights and must therefore be commensurate with the object pursued and comprise an appropriate and effective mechanism to prevent abuses (judicial and parliamentary controls),

1. Calls on the Council, the Commission and the Member States to implement the action plan's recommendations more promptly than hitherto and, wherever the target date has already been exceeded, to create the necessary conditions for implementation forthwith or at the latest within a year of the expiry of the deadline;

2. Welcomes the draft resolution - supplementing the action plan - which seeks to improve measures to combat organised crime by resorting to prevention; welcomes the comprehensive approach and the layout of the draft which is based on the action plan (directives and concrete measures); calls on the Council to develop one or more corresponding measures for each guideline and clearly to stipulate the responsibility and target date for implementation, as in the action plan;

3. Regrets that the draft contains few concrete measures; calls therefore on the Council to supplement the draft in this respect and to formulate specific demands, concrete recommendations and direct action guidelines and to avoid merely descriptive endorsements of certain types of behaviour without any practical mission, or statements of intent about merely examining some matter;

4. Calls on the Council also to involve the applicant countries and (at least) neighbouring third countries in this preventive strategy against organised crime and in the drawing up of a specific cooperation programme incorporating at least exchange of information, guidelines for common standards and methods of prevention, exchange of experience, research and any other measures appropriate for the purpose of achieving that objective;

5. Is of the opinion that judicial cooperation amongst the Member States in the fight against organised crime must be developed in parallel with a gradual increase in the account taken of respect for the rights of the defence, the protection of witnesses and the safeguarding of individual and procedural guarantees;

6. Is convinced of the importance of serious-minded, objective and sustained participation by the media in information and awareness-raising campaigns concerning the dangers which organised crime poses to democracy, the rule of law, freedom and human rights;

7. Stresses in particular the importance of setting in motion programmes in the following areas: training in fraud detection, the introduction of codes of conduct for vulnerable professions (especially those mentioned in recommendation 12 of the action plan), the extension of the financial institutions¨ duty to declare suspicious transactions to professions carrying out activities involving a considerable risk of money laundering, the abolition of tax deductibility in respect of expenditure incurred for illegal purposes such as active corruption and, above all, calls on the Commission rapidly to introduce ideas and concrete and effective measures for internal reform;

8. Stresses the particular importance of civil society in preventing crime in general and calls on the Council and Member States to provide it with consistent support in its various efforts to assume responsibility, namely through:

- targeted measures in the fields of labour, health (taking into account in particular the problem of drug addiction), social, educational, training, cultural, youth and family policy, so as to influence, in a positive way, the circumstances and causes of crime (a reduction in factors which encourage and a promotion of factors which discourage crime),

- the development of innovative and people-friendly town planning which hinders crime and takes account of the need for preventive action, including the planning of the urban environment and development of architecture inimical to crime (reduction in opportunities for breaking the law), measures to correct past town planning mistakes (slums, run-down housing estates) and to replace the present concentration of large numbers of refugees in unorganised and often outdoor urban settlements by setting up organised camps with proper sanitary facilities, security, provisions etc.,

- stressing the importance of, and the link between, the new proposals and Recommendation No 9 of the action plan, which envisages making use of the opportunities presented by the European Social Fund and the Urban programme in order to prevent the Union's big cities from becoming the favoured domain of organised criminals, and improving the exchange of information on projects that have proved useful in this area,

- the elimination of social disorganisation and a strengthening of relations within the immediate social environment (measures to promote the creation of tenants' groups and to stimulate neighbourhood contacts) which can also increase informal social controls ('neighbourhood watch'),

- a strengthening of a sense of community (the promotion of voluntary service for social policy objectives, the communication of values through private socialisation and integration systems, such as families, kindergartens, schools, churches and leisure associations), a strengthening of self-esteem and individual attachment to social values and objectives and a readiness to have the courage of one's convictions,

- the integration of marginalised groups (the involvement of minorities in the social and political dialogue, the introduction of the right to vote and stand for election at communal level after a certain period of legal residence in accordance with the same procedures as those applicable to European Union nationals),

- measures to promote the establishment of bodies at local and regional levels aimed at preventing crime (crime prevention boards),

- comprehensive information about the real nature of criminal organisations, so as to make people less disposed to tolerate or actively support them,

- promoting and supporting measures and projects to educate citizens to be law-abiding, paying particular attention to initiatives by local authorities and civil society and their organisations and associations; these initiatives should be encouraged where the presence or risk of organised crime is the greatest and its links with common crime the closest,

- community policing: an approach by which the police do not merely react to existing problems but seek to identify and analyse problems at an early stage and inform and consult citizens: this facilitates the establishment of a relationship of trust between the police and local residents,

- measures to make citizens more prepared to make statements to and cooperate with the police and the judicial authorities (by protecting witnesses, for example),

- care for those in need (for example, support for children, young people and families at risk from delinquency, availability of sufficient treatment facilities for drug addicts),

- measures to reduce the probability of repeat offending (the avoidance of stigmatisation, particularly for first-time offenders; increased importance should be attached to alternative forms of reaction, such as compensation between perpetrators and victims, the payment of money or the provision of labour for community institutions, and social training courses; measures to strengthen (re) socialisation efforts in the case of repeat offenders; social and psychological care for prisoners; careful preparation before their release, etc.),

- the establishment of programmes to help and treat victims,

- the introduction and/or strengthening of measures to prevent all forms of trafficking in children and women;

- effective measures to combat factors which lead to the development of begging, particularly by children (at traffic lights for instance),

- stamping out the networks trafficking in women, including teenage girls, and illegal prostitution, by also developing cooperation with their countries of origin;

9. Calls on the Council to translate the realisation that transparency and controls are effective preventive measures against corruption and organised crime into functional measures and to support the introduction of these two principles as a general democratic principle in all important decision-taking procedures in the spheres of administration, the economy and politics;

10. Calls on the Council and the Member States to give priority to crime prevention projects within the context of the reform of the Structural Funds and other regional assistance programmes;

11. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States and the applicant states.