Brussels, 04/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - Reports from European police services show that there is ever greater cooperation in Europe between foreign criminal groups and local mafias. Every year more than 100,000 women and children fall victim to human traffickers, with Asian networks selling them on to gangs in the Balkan countries. Various groups collaborate to pass heroin from Afghanistan through Kosovo and into the EU. Others, working in Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Baltic states, have made the European Union the world centre of amphetamine production. Counterfeiting of bank notes remains a favourite activity of transnational crime: one million counterfeit notes are seized every year. Confronted with all this, the EU is struggling to enhance its police and legal cooperation, says a report published in London in mid-April by the Centre for European Reform (CER). The report's author, Hugo Brady, who formerly worked at the Irish Foreign Ministry, had access to political leaders and top level European police officers. All point to a series of impediments to cooperation, such as the rule that requires unanimity in legal and police cooperation, which is paralysing Europol (set up in 1999 and based in The Hague). “European governments and their police forces have no choice but to work together if they are to beat these increasingly sophisticated criminal networks. While criminals can move easily between EU countries, policemen cannot,” says Mr Brady in a press release. The CER report entitled “The EU and the fight against organised crime”, tries to determine whether European police are doing enough to eradicate organised criminal networks. The report also examines the difficulties encountered by the police and judges when investigating cross-border cases, and contains a number of recommendations to improve cooperation. It stresses that the fight against crime should be approached in the context of the EU foreign policy. (bc)