European Commission
Malmström

Confiscated land

I’m traveling in Apulia in southern Italy, where I’m visiting various projects financed by funds confiscated from the Mafia. In between villages in the beautiful countryside between Bari and Brindisi, we saw houses and large country estates previously owned by Mafia bosses which have now been turned into agricultural cooperatives where local young people can find work growing and selling biological products. The Mafia’s criminal assets are reclaimed by the people along with the orgainsation’s territory, which is so vital to their control over local communities.

Luxury villas are made into homes for young people in need of support, night clubs turned into youth clubs and music centers for disabled children and properties into museums, etc. Much of this is driven by the Libera network and the involvement from the civil society in this area is enormous. It is a daily struggle to show that the anti-Mafia is more powerful than the Mafia itself.

There is still much work to be done and the fight against organised crime is hampered by widespread corruption, but the activity we’ve seen today is truly impressive. Many of the projects are also supported financially by the EU.

The sun has been shining in Rome, showing the city from its best side. I’m here to meet with various representatives from the new Government, the Parliament and other organisations.

The Italian government, led by Mario Monti, have totally different European interests than the former Government and it has therefore become a key ally, not least when it comes to my portfolio issues. Today I mainly discussed asylum, immigration, the situation in Lampedusa, integration and Schengen. I met with Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, Minister for Integration, Andrea Riccardi, members from both the Chamber of Deputies and from the Senate, and several journalists.

I know Giorgio Napolitano from my time as a Member of the European Parliament, having spent five years in the same committee. He is the President of Italy and an impressive man of 85 years. We had the opportunity to meet and he has an astounding knowledge of all matters within the EU. Many people would say that he has been the only stable force in Italy for the recent years and he is very popular.

Meeting with Don Luigi Ciotti, President of Libera

Another important issue for Italy is organised crime and the fight against the mafia. A month ago I presented a proposal on confiscation of criminal assets and that’s an area where the Italians have great experience. In Italy, Mafia assets are turned into social benefits, to projects for the benefit of young people, victims and more. A senior person in this area is the priest Don Luigi Ciotti, founder of Libera, a network of over 1200 different associations, groups and schools working to combat organised crime, to support victims and promoting a society based on the rule of law. They have projects all over Italy and many of them are run with the money seized form the mafia. Tomorrow I will go and visit some of these projects.

Yesterday I paid a short visit to Stockholm to speak at Conference on Security. The Conference brings together executives in the security sector and security managers from various companies, and they had invited me as a keynote speaker. I spoke about organised crime groups and how they operate in the EU, the prevalence of cyber crime and what the EU does to meet those challenges. I told them about the proposal for a European Cybercrime Centre at Europol, which I will present next week.

I also met with the employees from the Commission’s representation in Stockholm. We talked about current issues and in particular about the negotiations on the asylum package, which are slowly but surely moving forward. The Commission’s representations organise seminars and are responsible for the EU information offices. If you have general questions concerning the EU or if you want information material you can always contact the representation in your country. The representations do a very good job and it’s always nice to meet the people working there.

Early this morning, I went back to Brussels for this week’s Commission meeting. On today’s agenda was, among other things, the enforcement of the directive concerning the posting of workers.

The Posting of Workers Directive was adopted in 1996, and it establishes the rights of a ‘posted worker’ – a worker sent from one EU country to another to perform a job during a given period of time. The directive states, for example, that all workers should receive pay, vacation days, and includes safety requirements for the workplace. When the directive was adopted there had been several cases of abuse of posted workers and the new rules sought to protect them. Now, 18 years later, we see that not all Member States have implemented the directive correctly and there are still cases where the employees are not adequately protected. Today’s proposal aims to clarify the responsibilities of Member States. The Commission also reaffirmed that social rights such as the right to strike, are on a par with economic rights, such as the freedom of establishment.

Tonight, I will fly to Tallinn where I will meet, among others, the Prime Minister and where I will inaugurate the new European IT Agency. The Agency has nothing to do with cybercrime but will instead be responsible for running the Visa Information (VIS) and EURODAC systems – making sure that they function twenty four hours a day.

With Interpol's Secretary-General Ronald K. Noble

This morning I went to visit Interpol’s headquarter in Lyon. 190 countries are members of Interpol and it has been very interesting to hear how they work. We discussed issues such as organized crime, cybercrime, child abuse etc. In recent years, cooperation between Europol and Interpol has become increasingly better. The cooperation has also led to a couple of operations and arrests of international gangs involved in selling and disseminating images of children being sexually abused . We discussed how we could further develop this cooperation when it comes to for exemple, training of police in new democracies. Tunisia and Libya are exemples of two countries where the Commission is already engaged. A functioning police force, where the police is working for the public service and not the dictatorship, is of course central for a democratic transition.

Interpol is planning to establish a centre in Singapore to coordinate the fight against cybercrime. Within a few weeks’ time, I will present a Commission proposal to establish a European Cybercrime Centre. We of course discussed a future cooperation between the two centres.

My visit coincided with Interpol’s annual conference with responsible national authorities, so there were police officers from nearly 100 countries in Lyon today. I had the opportunity to listen to the conclusions of the conference and to talk about the ongoing activities within the EU and the work with our internal security strategy.

Organised crime is highly profitable, and at the moment there are hundreds of millions of euros invested by European organised criminal and mafia groups in gold, luxury villas, restaurants, etc. This is money that belongs to EU citizens but currently the police only succeeds in confiscating a fraction of the assets. Money is the driving force behind organised crime, and until we can get to the criminals where it hurts the most, it will continue to be profitable to embark on a criminal path. Today I presented a new proposal to make it easier for law enforcement authorities across Europe to access and confiscate criminal assets.

At the moment, rules on confiscation differ greatly between EU member states which makes the process of confiscating assets both complicated and inefficient. These differences in legislation are also being exploited by the criminals in order to hide their assets.

With more harmonized rules in place, criminal’s assets – especially money – will be frozen more quickly when prosecutors fear that they would otherwise disappear abroad. It should also be much easier to confiscate assets across Europe that are not necessarily linked to a specific crime, but can be linked to a person’s criminal activities. In addition, criminals should no longer be able to transfer assets to a friend or relative, so-called third-party confiscation, and get away with it. You can find more information here.

The fight against organised crime and terrorism is now being stepped up even more with today’s adoption by the international task force against money laundering and financing of terrorism, FATF, on new global standards. The new standards entail recommendations which all members of the FATF should implement in order to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism, for example better collaboration between countries and tighter regulation of electronic transactions. The FATF has also proposed tougher recommendations on addressing corruption and tax crimes.

Better cooperation at a global level is crucial and most welcome in the fight against organised crime and terrorism. The Commission is now preparing proposals to incorporate the new standards in existing EU legislation, which include the Third Anti-Money Laundering Directive and a Framework Decision from 2001 on criminal offences for money laundering.

Yesterday was a long and exciting day in Stockholm. A little bit late from the flight, I arrived to a seminar about organised crime, cooperation across borders and the Commission’s proposal on confiscation of criminal assets which will be presented soon. Global organised crime is a gigantic illegal enterprise encompassing vast amounts of money. In a UN report, the global drug trade alone is estimated to generate 321,6 billion dollars. Aside from fighting crime through law enforcement and preventative measures, we must also become better at going after the money, and retrieving criminals’ illegally aquired assets to taxpayers and victims. At the seminar, I discussed these matters with writer and journalist Lasse Wierup and Hans Ihrman from the Swedish Prosecution Authority. We could have spoken for hours, and in the audience were representatives from the police, prosecutors and many other knowledgeable people that I would have liked to continue the discussion with.

During the day I also had time to sit down for interviews with Sveriges Radio and a TV4 News, and speak to Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask about Schengen and cybercrime issues.

Today, I participated in a seminar in Brussels organised by the Swedish representation to the EU and the US mission, focusing on integration and anti-discrimination. William Kennard, the US ambassador to the EU, Swedish Minister for Integration Erik Ullenhag and myself had a very interesting discussion lead by Pat Cox, former speaker of the European Parliament. The US mission has published a short summary and photos on Facebook.

This afternoon I have also celebrated my cabinet’s two-year anniversary with semlor that I brought with me from Stockholm this morning. It’s important to spread the light of the semla in Brussels.

Enthusiastic about the privately imported semlor.

Long discussion in the morning meeting with the Commissioners today about Greece. It is absolutely necessary that the Greek government and all political parties pull themselves together and accept the demands of the IMF and the EU, but of course we all feel a great concern for the social situation and the harsh conditions that the Greek people are going through.

This afternoon I attended a hearing in the European Parliament on Schengen. The Danish Minister, Morten Bödskov, the European Parliament Rapporteurs on Schengen, were there among many others. It was very interesting. The question of how we can strengthen the Schengen cooperation is extremely important. This involves both improving the evaluation, so that we in time can detect and correct problems, but also how we can set up a mechanism to prevent Member States from unilaterally and arbitrarily impose border controls. There are clear differences of opinion, especially in the Council, and now we need to find a constructive compromise. Read my speech here.

Tomorrow I’m going to Stockholm to attend a seminar on organised crime and the money involved. Participants in the seminar include, the author Lasse Wierup and prosecutor Hans Ihrman. I will also have a number of other meetings, including with Minister of Justice, Beatrice Ask.

Serbian President Boris Tadic

Late last night I came back from a trip to Belgrade. The purpose of the trip was to attend a regional conference on corruption and organized crime, which is an annual conference organized by the Interior and Justice Ministers of Serbia. It is a forum where Ministers from across the Balkans, but also the wider region, discuss and exchange experiences. I had several interesting meetings, including with the Interior Minister, Ivica Dačice. We talked about crime, asylum and migration, cooperation with Europol and visa issues. With the Minister of Justice, Snezana Malovic, I spoke mostly about corruption and the importance of involving the whole community in the fight against corruption, not only the Minister of Justice. Serbia is currently working on creating an ambitious plan to fight corruption, so we exchanged ideas about what should be included.
 
The mood in Serbia is anxious right now, partly because of the unrest between Serbs and KFOR at the border with Kosovo, but above all because the European Council, at its summit on the 9th December, will decide whether Serbia should receive candidate status. It is my strong conviction that Serbia belongs in the European Union, but of course there are still many reforms to be made. The Commission has recommended that Serbia be given this status, but this is something that the Member States unanimously must to adopt, and that unity is not yet there. It is important that Serbia continues to engage in dialogue with Kosovo in trying to find a constructive solution to simplify everyday life. There is a new round of negotiations taking place today.
 
I also made two very interesting study visits; one to the Red Cross, which, for several years, has been running a project with young volunteers providing information on trafficking. It is a very ambitious project, and since 2005 the young volunteers have met with almost 100 000 children and adolescents. They also showed a film, Sisters, which tells the story of two young sisters who are lured to Western Europe and forced to work as sex slaves. The film’s producer, Bojana Maljevic, has received many awards and was there to speak about the film. We saw a clip which had a real impact, showing the brutal reality that sadly too many young women face today.

We also visited a refugee camp for Roma, where 250 Roma from Kosovo have been living for 15 years in very basic conditions. No electricity, no water and very simple houses. The camp will now be closed to build new houses and the Roma have no place to go. There are unfortunately many Roma who live that way, not only in Serbia, but in many countries in the region. In Belgrade alone there are over 130 camps with Roma. These are temporary camps in parking lots or landfills that gradually just become the permanent home of young and old alike. The EU supports Serbia in implementing various projects and building housing, but progress is very slow. Images of small, scantily-clad children playing among the garbage, and the concerns about what will happen to them, are not easy to let go.
 
The trip to Belgrade ended with a conversation with President Tadic. We talked of course about Kosovo.

Today we have adopted a Communication which sets out the main options for modernising and simplifying procedures for crossing the border between the EU and third countries. Modern technology has not yet reached this domain – we still have the old fashioned model of stamping passports to register inward and outward travel. As many as 700 million EU citizens and third country nationals cross the EU’s external borders every year and this number is expected to rise significantly in the future. By 2030, the number of people at European airports could increase by 80 %. To enable smoother and faster border crossings for travellers we need to modernise the systems.  What a more modern system looks like – a modern system that also respects the integrity of individuals – will now be discussed and proposals drawn up. Find more information here.

Today we have also given a fresh impetus to the EU anti-drugs policy, by announcing an overhaul of the EU rules to fight illicit drugs and in particular new synthetic substances. More and more new drugs are entering the market, but the legislation is not up-to date with these developments. These drugs are produced in one EU Member State but easily sold over the internet and delivered by post in another. To tackle the problem, we suggest strengthening EU legislation on new substances used for drug production. Behind these distribution chains are often organised criminals. The logic behind this, as all other forms of organised crime, is very simple – it is about money.  It follows that we must not only put punish criminals with jail time, but also deprive them of financial gains, cars and property – in the long run making organised crime less profitable. At the end of this year I will propose rules on the confiscation and recovery of assets involved in serious crime, including drug trafficking.