WRITTEN QUESTION P-0338/03

by Charles Tannock (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(5 February 2003)

Subject: Europol's role in identifying progress in the Candidate Countries' efforts to tackle organised crime

Last June, the Commission published a report in which it pointed to weaknesses in the judicial and anti-corruption systems in a number of Candidate Countries and suggested that there was a need to strengthen administrative structures to handle the enormous sums of agricultural and regional aid which they will receive following accession.

More generally, there is concern, even amongst those who favour Enlargement, that insufficient steps have been taken within certain Candidate Countries to crack-down on organised crime, and, in particular, on those involved in drug and people trafficking and in state corruption.

The European Parliament recognised this problem in its latest report on Enlargement adopted on 20 November of last year. Paragraph 6 of that report read as follows:

Continues to attach a high priority to combating corruption and to improving the transparency of public spending; reiterates that it expects to receive a report from each candidate country and Europol on corruption and organised crime, covering past and current actions and making firm commitments as to how each country plans to fight corruption and organised crime in the future.

Does the Commission welcome the Parliament's call for Europol to play a role in this process as well as the Candidate Countries themselves, and, if so, does the Commission believe that it would be appropriate for Europol to receive additional funding in order to fulfil that task effectively?

Answer given by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission

(6 March 2003)

The Commission shares the view of the Parliament concerning the high importance of combating organized crime in general including drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings and corruption. This applies for the current Member States as well as for the future Member States.

In an effort to address the concerns raised by the Honourable Member and in particular to strengthen the fight against organised crime, the Commission is considering that a Justice and Home Affairs chapter should be included in the Third Cohesion Report and in the Structural Funds covering the 2007-2013 period. This would allow the co-financing under the Structural Funds of specific measures targeted at preventing and/or reducing organised crime activities and general criminality. This would also allow co-financing of measures designed to address border management issues in the enlarged Union.

More generally, the Commission has stressed repeatedly that it attaches the greatest importance to ensuring that the Acceding and Candidate Countries reach an adequate level of administrative and judicial capacity by the time of accession. The Commission is systematically monitoring the implementation of all commitments that the Acceding Countries have made during the accession negotiations, including, naturally, those concerning strengthening administrative and judicial capacity concerning the fight against organised crime,

corruption, drugs and trafficking in persons. Moreover, to help the Candidate Countries in their efforts, institution building and investment have for years been a focal point of Community assistance under the PHARE programme. Furthermore, in 2002, the Commission worked with each negotiating country to produce an Action Plan for reinforcing administrative and judicial capacity. Implementation of the Action Plans is now underway. Under the Action Plans, the Commission made available an extra EUR 250 million, which brought the Community's total effort to strengthen the administrative and judicial capacity of the negotiating countries in 2002 to around EUR 1 billion.

Europol is an important instrument of the Union in the fight against organized crime. One instrument to assess the threat of the different forms of serious international crime is the annual Union Organized Crime situation report issued by Europol on the basis of Member States contributions.

Corruption is only a very recent competence of Europol. By 6 December 2001 the Council adopted a Council Decision making Europol competent in the area of combating corruption(1). This Decision entered into force only on 1 January 2002. In view of the limited resources of Europol the Council has set certain priorities for Europol. It is up to the Council to decide on these priorities and to amend them if necessary. This can only happen on a proposal of the Europol Management Board. Corruption does until now not figure amongst these priority crime areas that Europol has been tasked to deal with. Corruption is, therefore, not particularly emphasized in the last Union Organized Crime reports.

Europol's task is to support Member States in their efforts to fight organized crime. This will also apply for the Candidate Countries once they have acceded to the Union as well as to the Europol Convention. This support function can only be carried out in close cooperation with all Member States, in future including also the new members.

Europol does not have any power to monitor the corruption situation in the Union and its neighbouring countries. Any involvement of Europol requires an approach based on partnership. A report on the organized crime situation in the future Member States including the situation in the area of corruption would only be feasible in close cooperation with the countries concerned and based on their contributions. In order to get an overall picture any approach should focus on the whole Union and not be limited to just the new Member States. If this became an additional priority for Europol it would be necessary to consider in the competent fora the need for allocation of additional means to Europol in order to enable the organization to cope successfully with the additional tasks.

(1) OJ C 358, 15.12.2001.