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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new initiatives were proposed by Her Majesty's Government for tackling (a) illegal drugs and (b) other criminal activity during the UK presidency of the European Union. [48546] Mr. George Howarth: Fighting organised international crime, including tackling illicit drug trafficking, was a priority for this Government during the United Kingdom Presidency, with a focus on practical action. (a) Tackling illicit drugs One of our main objectives was to begin consideration of the post-1999 European Union drugs strategy. The Cardiff European Council endorsed a report on the key elements of a new five year strategy, which strikes the necessary balance between demand and supply reduction activity. The strategy will be further developed under succeeding Presidencies, to take effect from the year 2000. We continued to promote Customs joint surveillance exercises to improve operational co-operation and exchange of intelligence. Three practical exercises took place during the United Kingdom Presidency, including an exercise involving all 15 member states and the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe successfully targeting drug trafficking along the Balkan route. This resulted in seizures with a United Kingdom total street value of around £10 million. The United Kingdom was active as Presidency in ensuring effective European Union co-ordination in preparations for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs, which adopted a Political Declaration, guiding principles on demand reduction, and an action plan covering precursor chemicals, amphetamine-type stimulants, money laundering, judicial co-operation and alternative development. The United Kingdom Presidency also took forward important work on European Union regional drugs initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. (b) Other criminal activity Under the United Kingdom Presidency, work against other criminal activity, particularly serious organised crime, has been largely geared to implementing the European Union's Action Plan against organised crime, agreed in 1997 by the Amsterdam European Council. A progress report prepared for the Cardiff European Council in June this year described substantial progress with the implementation of the Action Plan's recommendations. Work on all of the recommendations with deadlines for completion up to the middle of 1998 either has been completed or is well underway. Work has also begun on many of the recommendations with longer deadlines. Specific achievements in the field of organised crime during our Presidency included: the establishment of a funding programme to combat organised crime (FALCONE programme); political agreement on a joint action on participation in a criminal organisation; the establishment of a mutual evaluation mechanism and setting in motion of the first round of national evaluations which will concentrate initially on reasons for delays in providing mutual legal assistance and urgent requests for restraint of assets; creation of a European Judicial Network to improve practical co-operation and communication; adoption, ahead of schedule, of the Pre-Accession Pact on organised crime with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States and Cyprus; introduction and completion of a joint action on good practice in mutual legal assistance; introduction of a joint action on the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of assets, on which discussion is continuing. In addition to these achievements, the Naples II Convention on customs co-operation has been agreed, as has the Convention on Driving Disqualification which has been in negotiation for seven years. A further priority for our Presidency was to secure full ratification of the Europol Convention. National ratification procedures have now been completed and the Europol Convention will enter into force on 1 October 1998. A fully functioning Europol will represent a step-change in the level of the European Union's response to organised crime. On a more technical level, the United Kingdom Presidency promoted and concluded initiatives on the subjects of crime prevention, where national contact points were identified for exchange of information and dissemination of best practice, and on fingerprints, where agreement was reached on a common European Union standard for the exchange of fingerprint information.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

315 c347-9W; 48546

Session

1997-98

Subjects

Crime Drugs EU action Misuse EU presidency