Europols role in the fight against organised crime and terrorism MaxPeter Ratzel Director of Europol

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Europols role in the fight against organised
crime and terrorismMax-Peter RatzelDirector of
EuropolRobert Schuman UniversityStrasbourg 27
April 2007
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Europol

• Europols role, nature, methods and tools
• Europol against the background of the EU
• Recent and pending developments
• Europols role in fighting OC and TE
• Conclusions

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Mission of Europol

• The objective of Europol shall be to improve
• the effectiveness and cooperation of the
• competent authorities in the Member States in
• preventing and combating all forms of serious and
• international crime.
• Art. 2 of the Europol Convention

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Operational Perspective

• Minimum requirements
• Identification of an organised criminal group
• The OC group operates in an international way
• - 2 or more member states are affected
• Europol mandate

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Methods Tools Europol provides

• Exchange of information
• Between EU member states and Europol
• Between member states themselves
• Between member states and third parties who have
  signed cooperation agreements

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Multilingual, Multicultural

• Liaison Officers provide the link with Member
  States
• 2. Links to police, customs, border security and
  intelligence services
• 3. Multilateral exchange and analysis

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Cooperation agreements

• Operational Agreement - Exchange of Personal data
  allowed
• Strategic Agreement - No exchange of Personal
  data allowed

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Recent developments current challenges

• The Three Protocols
• Money Laundering
• Joint Investigation Teams (JITs)
• Danish Protocol

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Existing EU Developments

• Action Plan to Combat Organised Crime 1997
• Vienna Action Plan 1998
• Tampere EU Council action programme 1999
• Millennium Strategy 2000
• EU Counter Terrorism Strategy of 2005
• Hague Programme of 2004 with projections for 2005
  -2009

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Specifics of The Hague Programme

• Improved exchange of information
• Enhanced police cooperation
• Europol to become a key actor
• OCTA to be produced
• JIT (s) to be activated
• Europol legal basis to be reviewed
• Management of cross-border crises

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Money Laundering

• Characteristics
• Europol can cooperate on all money laundering
  offences
• Does not include offences predicate to illegal
  money-laundering activities with regard to which
  forms of crime Europol has no competence

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Joint Investigation Teams

• Characteristics
• Europol supports activities but has no coercive
  powers
• Europol has the power to request a member state
  to start an investigation if certain conditions
  are met

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The Danish Protocol

• Characteristics
• Europol can directly contact investigation teams
  for pressing operational needs
• The Director can open an Analytical Work File in
  urgent cases
• The Director may transmit information without
  consent of MS in urgent cases

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Combat of Organised Crime Terrorism

• Europol provides
• Strategic support
• Analytical support
• Operational support
• Expertise and training

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Strategic Support

• Principal Documents OCTA and TeSat
• Organised Crime Threat Assessment
• EU Terrorism Situation Trend Report
• Both produced annually by Europol

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Analytical Support

• Key Theme Intelligence Led law Enforcement
• Proactive not Reactive
• Knowledge Analysis Intelligence

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Operational Support

• Store, process and analyse factual information
• Happens within the framework of an Analytical
  Work File
• An AWF can target several criminal groups at the
  same time

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Expertise and Training

• Improve and promote law enforcement cooperation
• Provide training
• Share specialised techniques for law enforcement
• Maintain networks of experts in different areas

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The End
Thank you for your attention!