[FYI] Tampere Results: "A Unionwide Fight Against Crime"

["Axel H Horns" <horns@t-online.de>]

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&do
c=DOC/99/14|0|RAPID&lg=EN

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C. A UNIONWIDE FIGHT AGAINST CRIME 

The European Council is deeply committed to reinforcing the fight 
against serious organised and transnational crime. The high level of 
safety in the area of freedom, security and justice presupposes an 
efficient and comprehensive approach in the fight against all forms 
of crime. A balanced development of unionwide measures against crime 
should be achieved while protecting the freedom and legal rights of 
individuals and economic operators.  

Preventing crime at the level of the Union  

The European Council calls for the integration of crime prevention 
aspects into actions against crime as well as for the further 
development of national crime prevention programmes. Common 
priorities should be developed and identified in crime prevention in 
the external and internal policy of the Union and be taken into 
account when preparing new legislation.  

The exchange of best practices should be developed, the network of 
competent national authorities for crime prevention and co-operation 
between national crime prevention organisations should be 
strengthened and the possibility of a Community funded programme 
should be explored for these purposes. The first priorities for this 
co-operation could be juvenile, urban and drug-related crime.  

Stepping up co-operation against crime  

Maximum benefit should be derived from co-operation between Member 
States' authorities when investigating cross-border crime in any 
Member State. The European Council calls for joint investigative 
teams as foreseen in the Treaty to be set up without delay, as a 
first step, to combat trafficking in drugs and human beings as well 
as terrorism. The rules to be set up in this respect should allow 
representatives of Europol to participate, as appropriate, in such 
teams in a support capacity.  

The European Council calls for the establishment of a European Police 
Chiefs operational Task Force to exchange, in co-operation with 
Europol, experience, best practices and information on current trends 
in cross-border crime and contribute to the planning of operative 
actions.  

Europol has a key role in supporting unionwide crime prevention, 
analyses and investigation. The European Council calls on the Council 
to provide Europol with the necessary support and resources. In the 
near future its role should be strengthened by means of receiving 
operational data from Member States and authorising it to ask Member 
States to initiate, conduct or coordinate investigations or to create 
joint investigative teams in certain areas of crime, while respecting 
systems of judicial control in Member States.  

To reinforce the fight against serious organised crime, the European 
Council has agreed that a unit (EUROJUST) should be set up composed 
of national prosecutors, magistrates, or police officers of 
equivalent competence, detached from each Member State according to 
its legal system. EUROJUST should have the task of facilitating the 
proper coordination of national prosecuting authorities and of 
supporting criminal investigations in organised crime cases, notably 
based on Europol's analysis, as well as of co-operating closely with 
the European Judicial Network, in particular in order to simplify the 
execution of letters rogatory. The European Council requests the 
Council to adopt the necessary legal instrument by the end of 2001.  

A European Police College for the training of senior law enforcement 
officials should be established. It should start as a network of 
existing national training institutes. It should also be open to the 
authorities of candidate countries.  

Without prejudice to the broader areas envisaged in the Treaty of 
Amsterdam and in the Vienna Action Plan, the European Council 
considers that, with regard to national criminal law, efforts to 
agree on common definitions, incriminations and sanctions should be 
focused in the first instance on a limited number of sectors of 
particular relevance, such as financial crime (money laundering, 
corruption, Euro counterfeiting), drugs trafficking, trafficking in 
human beings, particularly exploitation of women, sexual exploitation 
of children, high tech crime and environmental crime.  

Serious economic crime increasingly has tax and duty aspects. The 
European Council therefore calls upon Member States to provide full 
mutual legal assistance in the investigation and prosecution of 
serious economic crime.  

The European Council underlines the importance of addressing the 
drugs problem in a comprehensive manner. It calls on the Council to 
adopt the 2000-2004 European Strategy against Drugs before the 
European Council meeting in Helsinki.  

Special action against money laundering  

Money laundering is at the very heart of organised crime. It should 
be rooted out wherever it occurs. The European Council is determined 
to ensure that concrete steps are taken to trace, freeze, seize and 
confiscate the proceeds of crime.  

Member States are urged to implement fully the provisions of the 
Money Laundering Directive, the 1990 Strasbourg Convention and the 
Financial Action Task Force recommendations also in all their 
dependent territories.  

The European Council calls for the Council and the European 
Parliament to adopt as soon as possible the draft revised directive 
on money laundering recently proposed by the Commission.  

With due regard to data protection, the transparency of financial 
transactions and ownership of corporate entities should be improved 
and the exchange of information between the existing financial 
intelligence units (FIU) regarding suspicious transactions expedited. 
Regardless of secrecy provisions applicable to banking and other 
commercial activity, judicial authorities as well as FIUs must be 
entitled, subject to judicial control, to receive information when 
such information is necessary to investigate money laundering. The 
European Council calls on the Council to adopt the necessary 
provisions to this end.  

The European Council calls for the approximation of criminal law and 
procedures on money laundering (e.g. tracing, freezing and 
confiscating funds). The scope of criminal activities which 
constitute predicate offences for money laundering should be uniform 
and sufficiently broad in all Member States.  

The European Council invites the Council to extend the competence of 
Europol to money laundering in general, regardless of the type of 
offence from which the laundered proceeds originate.  

Common standards should be developed in order to prevent the use of 
corporations and entities registered outside the jurisdiction of the 
Union in the hiding of criminal proceeds and in money laundering. The 
Union and Member States should make arrangements with third country 
offshore-centres to ensure efficient and transparent co-operation in 
mutual legal assistance following the recommendations made in this 
area by the Financial Action Task Force.  

The Commission is invited to draw up a report identifying provisions 
in national banking, financial and corporate legislation which 
obstruct international co-operation. The Council is invited to draw 
necessary conclusions on the basis of this report.  

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