Brussels, 23/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - The confiscation of Mafia assets will occupy an increasing place in the European internal security strategy: the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ms Cecilia Malmström, confirmed this in a video-recorded contribution to a conference held at the European Parliament by FLARE (Freedom, Legality and Rights in Europe), a network of civil society organisations which hopes to fight the Mafia and transnational organised crime. FLARE is made up of organisations from the Member States of the European Union, the Mediterranean, Russia, the Caucasus and the Balkans.
In a statement, Ms Malmström indicates that confiscation would feature in the legislative proposals the European Commission is to launch in mid-2011: "Fighting organised crime is one of the priorities of the internal security policy of the EU and is a key part of our strategic plan for the next five years, the Stockholm Programme, and of the document EU Internal Security in Action, a communication recently adopted by the Commission. Next year, I hope to present a proposal to reinforce the legal framework of confiscations. I know that in certain countries, such as Italy and Spain, confiscated assets are used by the authorities for the social activities and I find this practice very interesting: it could become a model to follow in the other Member States".
The conference held by FLARE on 9 and 10 December was the opportunity to reflect on the impact of corruption, economic activities linked to crime and violations of human rights in the EU. Some 40 speakers and nearly 800 participants helped to make the initiative a success, coinciding with the International Anti-Corruption Day. Among the speakers was the vice-president of the European Parliament (S&D, Italy), who said that "the Mafia are an international phenomenon which must be fought with transnational instruments" and that "the fight against the Mafia and for legality must be a priority for the EU and its States, which must become the principal actors in this area".
Don Luigi Ciotti, President of Libera, an Italian organisation which is a member of FLARE and which already uses assets confiscated from the Mafia for social purposes, spoke out against the fact that Italy has not yet ratified the Strasbourg Convention against corruption, which dates from 1999: a popular initiative has been launched in Italy to speed up the ratification. (Gp/trans.fl).