Saviano on what EU should do to fight the mafia

"Literature creates visions of the Europe of tomorrow. What it contributes to is not the single market but something more important: the spirit of European solidarity," Parliament's President Jerzy Buzek said, opening the 4th European Book Prize Ceremony Wednesday. The winners were "Purge", a novel by Finnish-Estonian author Sofi Oksanen, and the essay "Beauty and Hell" by Italian anti-mafia icon Roberto Saviano.

The two books "are testimonies of how much the struggle for emancipation is part of the identity of Europeans," Mr Buzek said. During the evening we spoke to 31-year-old Mr Saviano who has lived under threat since 2006, when he published his first book, Gomorrah, on the daily life of the Italian mafia.

"Why should the mafia fear the words of a writer?" he asked during Tuesday's ceremony. "Because there is a kind of magic in literature that allows stories to come close to people and to be remembered. The Mafia is afraid of those who read those stories; it fears a literature that breaks their secrecy,"

"The Mafia is not only an Italian problem," he said. "Europe is today experiencing a liquidity shortage and the mafia has a lot of money. So they are infiltrating the European business world and the European banking system. The criminal economy today is the first economy, with a turnover of more than $100 billion per year."

After the ceremony, Mr Saviano answered some of our questions:

Is Europe underestimating mafia existence and activities in Europe?

Yes, it is strongly underestimating it.

In which fields is the mafia active in Europe?

Drug trafficking, construction, transportation, waste dumping, tourism, money laundering, hospitality and the textile industry. I think it is quite a complete list.

Are EU countries doing enough to fight the mafia?

Apart from Italy, other European countries do not even have the crime of mafia association in their national legislation. At least the UK, Spain, Germany and France don't have it. On the other side, Italy has among the best anti-mafia legislation in the world, but there are still many problems.

What would you suggest to European decision makers?

To set up joint anti-mafia legislation in all member states and to create a common EU police task force committed to fighting criminal organisations. There is already cooperation between European police forces and it works, but it is not enough. To fight the mafia we would need something more, an organisation like the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), consisting of officers from all EU countries.

In your prizewinning book you tell the stories of people who died to get the truth out, like Anna Politkovskaya. In this context, how do you view the current furore over Julian Assange and WikiLeaks?

Assange is experiencing real persecution and I am very interested in the data published by WikiLeaks. I am a writer and I consider this story as a beautiful chapter of a book, worthy of being written by a novelist.

Instead of focusing on supposed sexual crimes, the authorities should look at how he ended up doing what he did. They are just trying to discredit Assange. This is unacceptable.