Brussels, 21/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - The very recent parliamentary committee specialised in the fight against Mafia organisations, organised crime and money laundering (CRIM) discussed, on Tuesday 19 June, the possibility of creating a European prosecutor responsible for combating such phenomena at EU level. MEPs also spoke of the idea of creating a specialised unit within Europol, a committee press release states.
MEPs have been organising an extensive hearing on the subject, attended by several important figures such as Pietro Grasso, the Italian anti-Mafia prosecutor, Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, and Giovanni Kessler, the director-general of OLAF. In the press release, MEPs pointed out that the EU still lacks coordination when it comes to tackling this phenomenon, which is partly due to different legal responses in the EU. The CRIM committee has set itself the long-term objective of producing a single legislative text, which aims to further develop this cooperation. According to the Commission's figures, corruption, organised crime and money laundering activities cost the European economy around €120 billion a year. (SP/transl.fl)