Brussels, 18/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 17 December, the European Parliament's civil liberties (LIBE) committee adopted (44 votes in favour, one against and one abstention) the compromise reached with the Council at the end of November on freezing and confiscating the assets of criminal groups, a press release states. The directive - which was proposed in 2011 - should enable the competent national authorities to confiscate and recover profits generated by organised crime. The EU member states will be able to decide how to re-use these assets - Italy re-uses them for charitable causes, for example.
This directive will also enable member states to confiscate the assets of a person who has been sentenced in absentia, who has fled or gone missing. It will also be possible to confiscate the goods of a suspect or accused person that have been transferred to a third person in order to avoid confiscation - a practice which is fairly common.
The European Parliament and Council also called on the European Commission to examine a system of confiscation without conviction.
The agreement will enable the member states to confiscate assets acquired through active and passive corruption in the private sector, through cases of corruption involving officials from the EU institutions or member states, through participation in a criminal organisation, through child pornography or through cybercrime. The draft agreement also provides for a revision clause enabling the Commission to add new infringements to the list of those to which confiscation is applied.
The text adopted in the LIBE committee will be put to the plenary vote in February. The directive will enter into force in the coming months, once formal adoption is obtained at the Parliament and Council. The states will have 30 months to transpose it. Ireland is part of it but the UK and Denmark are outside this legislation. (SP/transl.fl)