[autom.vertaling] De bestrijding van georganiseerd misdaad die - EUROPOL versterkt (en)

Parliament is calling on Member States to ensure that Europol's role as a criminal intelligence body is strengthened to allow it to fulfil its task of providing Member States with information and intelligence leading to more effective results in preventing and combating organised crime. First, however, Europol should be made into an EU body, democratically accountable to Parliament.

The consultative report on a proposed Council decision was drawn up by Bill NEWTON DUNN (ALDE, UK) and adopted by MEPs on Wednesday. Its says each Member State should establish a Serious and Organised Crime Unit and an Asset Recovery Unit, to ensure coordination at national level and to act as a single contact point and to be based on recent and successful introduction of such units in the UK and Ireland.

MEPs call on the Member States to collect statistics on relevant offences and forward those statistics to the Commission, which should draw up harmonised and comparable statistics as from 2006. Each Member State should adopt the necessary measures to ensure that persons who supply information useful for the prevention, uncovering and/or punishment of crimes committed by criminal organisations, whether they are witnesses or perpetrators of crimes, are adequately protected against the risks of retaliation, threats or direct intimidation targeting themselves or their relatives. 

The EU has taken a lead in the fight against organised crime since the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam European Council of 16 and 17 June 1997, which adopted the first action plan to combat organised crime. In 1998, the Council adopted a Joint Action on participation in a criminal organisation. However, it is now seen as necessary to provide the Union with a more powerful and ambitious instrument to approximate more closely Member States' criminal legislation and improve cooperation in order to combat organised crime more effectively, inter alia by harmonizing the minimum thresholds of criminal penalties.

This particular proposal for a Council Framework Decision aims at harmonising the definition of what constitutes a criminal organisation. Such an organisation is understood to be a structured association of at least two persons who, for material gain, commit serious crimes punishable with at least four years of imprisonment, such as trafficking in weapons, drugs or human beings, economic crimes or money laundering.

It also proposes to punish leaders of such organisations with an imprisonment of at least ten years and participation, including supportive activities for the organisation, with five years of imprisonment. The proposal envisages lowering of the sentence of those members of criminal organisation who cooperate with the authorities with a view to avoiding criminal activities to assist in identifying and bringing to justice other offenders. It stipulates that Member States must cooperate and consult each other to coordinate their action and decide which Member State will prosecute the alleged offenders.