Debate: EU Action Plan against Trafficking in Cultural Goods
Date: THURSDAY, 20 APRIL 2023
Speaker: Nicolas Schmit
Language: EN

The market for cultural goods has some vulnerabilities attractive to criminals: buyers can be anonymous, the price of art is subjective and items can be moved easily. The illegal status of a cultural object is not immediately visible, like with weapons or drugs. This helps traffickers too.  For all this, the illicit trafficking in cultural goods is appealing for organised criminal groups. They operate across borders using shell companies, free ports and cash to hide the money trail. They also benefit from the increasing online sales where provenance and authenticity checks are less thorough. Interpol counted over 850 000 artefacts seized in 2020, more than half in Europe, and this may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, what can we do against that? We are not powerless against this situation and we are already doing quite a lot. Many EU countries have law enforcement units that specialise in cultural property crimes. The amount of goods seized in Europe proves their positive impact.  The Commission supports Europol’s work to tackle this crime within the European multidisciplinary law enforcement platform called EMPACT. As an example, Pandora is an annual law enforcement operation involving many Member States, Europol, Interpol, the US and others. So far, Operation Pandora has led to more than 400 arrests, resulting in the recovery of almost 150 000 cultural goods since 2016.  Now about the action plan. To further address these challenges, the Commission presented the EU action plan against trafficking in cultural goods last December. This was announced in the 2021 EU strategy to tackle organised crime. It is a comprehensive plan to fight organised crime effectively and to protect cultural heritage within and beyond the EU.  To succeed with this task, the action plan has four strategic objectives. One: prevention and detection of crimes by market participants and cultural heritage institutions. Two: leveraging law enforcement and judicial capabilities. Three: international cooperation, including source and transit countries. And four: support from all key stakeholders to protect cultural goods from crime.  The action plan sets out what the Commission will do and what Member States are encouraged to do. On the Commission side, we will help improving the intelligence picture to make cultural goods trafficking more visible. We will consider measures to improve the traceability of cultural goods transactions across Member States, and we will close loopholes on the illicit trade of cultural goods to export and import regulation and border controls.  We also will enhance our dialogue with the art market. Importantly, the Commission already supports source and transit countries. We are supporting Ukraine, for instance, to protect and evacuate its cultural heritage endangered by the Russian war of aggression, and we are working with UNESCO on fighting illicit trafficking of cultural goods in the Western Balkans.  For Member States, the action plan contains several recommendations. To take more advantage of Europol’s and Eurojust’s support to reinforce law enforcement and judicial cooperation in this field. To sign, ratify and implement the Council of Europe Nicosia Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property. To boost the capacity of national law enforcement and judicial authorities. They can do it by setting up and training specialised law enforcement units and prosecutors, or providing basic training for police and customs.  Finally, Member States should ensure that public and private collections register their possessions and report property crimes.  It is clear that we all have a role to play when it comes to stepping up the fight against trafficking of cultural goods, whether it is at EU level or national or just stakeholder level.