Brussels, 07/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - A special committee at the European Parliament on tackling organised crime, corruption and money-laundering (CRIM) endorsed its first interim report on Tuesday 7 May setting out a roadmap on tackling such crime in the same way across the EU.
The report sets out potential action that could be taken to preventatively freeze the assets of criminal gangs and organisations even before those involved are found guilty of any crime (this matter was the subject of a special report adopted the same day by the European Parliament's civil liberties committee), ban the mafia and similar organisations from being granted public contracts, and prevent anyone found guilty of corruption from holding elected office until at least five years after the date on which they were found guilty. The report includes the idea of setting up a European Public Prosecutor and asks the European Commission to flesh this out (the idea is set out in the Lisbon Treaty). The report will be voted upon by the European Parliament in a plenary sitting in June.
Rapporteur Salvatore Iacolino (EPP) said that organised crime was found in every member state and he estimated that it cost some €770 billion a year, €120 billion of it in the European Union. Iacolino said that establishing the concept of crime by association with organised crime at EU level would provide a key political opportunity and would require special legal measures that are only found in Italy at the moment. He explained that it wasn't possible to fight cross-border crimes without first harmonising member states' legislation.
Iacolino has been given broad support from political groups, but some people raise concerns, like MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA), who said this mid-term report didn't give enough tangible commitments to tackling organised crime and left too many issues hanging. The special committee will publish its final report in September. (SP/transl.fl)