Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-24-Speech-1-247-000"
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"en.20111024.22.1-247-000"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased with the work that has been achieved with the political groups, particularly the shadow rapporteurs: Mr Iacolino for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats), Mr Crocetta for the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Mr Albrecht for the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, Mr Kirkhope for the European Conservatives and Reformists and Mr de Jong for the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left. Their noteworthy contributions were decisive in arriving at an advanced and ambitious final draft.
Organised crime and mafias are one of the main threats to the security and freedoms of the people of Europe. For the first time in European political history, an official document is making explicit reference to mafias and to the need for specific, transnational measures to fight them. It is crucial to focus on organised crime and mafias because, as the Europol reports show, organised criminal groups are cropping up everywhere; they are taking root in the Member States and have heavily infiltrated the economy, finance, politics and all levels of government.
With this report, Parliament is proposing a concrete political line of attack, a serious, coordinated intervention and a treatment that is at last a match for the seriousness of the situation. This treatment is based on the intelligence gathering and analyses of those who fight organised crime every day. I take this opportunity to thank the judges, police representatives, researchers and witnesses who have contributed their precious experience to drawing up the definitive solutions proposed here. In a spirit of service and self-denial, they represent their Member States on a daily basis in an unequal fight against criminal organisations.
What drives criminal organisations is profit. That is why in the report, we have prioritised attacking assets that can be directly or indirectly traced back to organised crime. We are therefore looking forward with extreme interest to the proposal for a directive that the Commission is due to submit in the coming months on a European body of law to identify, freeze, seize and confiscate criminal assets.
I am therefore very happy to see Commissioner Reding here, and I would like to put Parliament’s specific political wishes to her. We ask for European rules to allow so-called extended confiscation and effective preventive measures, such as non conviction-based confiscation; we ask for rules to allow the targeting of assets held by front persons; and, above all, we call for rules to use confiscated assets for social purposes, so as to turn it into a cultural operation with the full involvement of civil society, without which merely fighting organised crime would be a wasted effort.
To give an idea of the importance of the document to be voted on tomorrow, I will give a list of the measures requested at European level: harmonisation of legislation on organised crime; rules for greater victim protection; extension of the offence of mafia association to all Member States; greater coordination and cooperation between Europol, Eurojust and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and with national authorities; improved judicial cooperation and full implementation of the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions; rules on transparency and prevention to stop public funds ending up in the hands of organised criminals; rules to counter financial crime and money laundering; and rules to prevent people convicted of offences connected with organised crime from standing in European elections.
We are absolutely sure about one thing, Commissioner: these demands, which we vigorously called for in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, and which we are about to adopt here, will not remain mere words. We will use every means at our disposal to put them into practice, in line with the Treaties in force which, fully in accordance with the democratic nature of the European Union, assign to the national parliaments and the European Parliament the fundamental role of guiding and assessing policy in the area of freedom, security and justice so as to protect the interests of the people of Europe. That is why we hope the Commission will immediately acknowledge the political importance and significance of this House’s position.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I would like to dedicate this work – this first step that Parliament is about to take – to all the innocent victims of organised crime and mafias. Their memory, the memory of those who paid with their lives for choosing not to give in to the foulness of moral compromise, must guide us, and it compels us to send out strong, unequivocal signals, such as the one I hope we will send to the people of Europe tomorrow."@en1
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