Text tabled : A7-0333/2011

  Regina Bastos (PPE), in writing. – (PT) Organised crime is taking advantage of globalisation, the abolition of borders in the EU and the legislative differences between the Member States to make increasingly substantial profits, whilst, at the same time, ensuring its impunity. Organised crime acts on a transnational, cross-border basis and has to be fought using the same approach. The Treaty of Lisbon has opened up new opportunities and provides new EU-level instruments, in terms both of judicial and police cooperation, and of authorities responsible for countering transnational organised crime, enabling the establishment of common rules to combat such crime more effectively. This report, for which I voted, tables proposals for improving the EU’s legislative framework and relations with other international institutions, such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Interpol. It particularly emphasises fully applying the principle of mutual recognition of criminal decisions, with a view to combating this kind of organised crime, and to improving judicial cooperation both between Member States and with third countries.