Thank you very much. The threat from the organized criminal groups is huge. It is one of the biggest threats that we have towards our societies. It is also a threat towards our security, towards our cohesion in society, towards our children, our youngsters, and towards our democracies.
So, the threat is huge. And we see it every day in our Member States: In Sweden last year there were 350 criminal shootings. We recently had 1700 arrests related to drug raids in France. We have seen things in Belgium, we have seen it in all Member States. So, I think this is very timely, and it is very necessary with this new report on the most threatening criminal networks.
You will hear it also from Catherine de Bolle but I also recommend you to read the report because it is very interesting. There are a lot of interesting things in there.
We can see how these most threatening criminal networks are very violent, and they often combine violence with corruption. We see that more than half of them are related to drug trafficking.
What was new information for me was how resilient they are, how they are able to continue their businesses even when their leaders are in prison.
One third of those are so resilient that they had been active for more than 10 years.
Also, what was a bit of a new information for me was, how quite a big proportion used this end-to-end control over their whole business sector.
So, I think there is a lot of good and important information in this report.
I think also that if and when the criminal networks have this end-to-end control of their criminal businesses, we need an end-to-end police cooperation to be able to fight them.
And that is why it is important to have this information and the knowledge on how they are organized.
We used to say that it takes a network to fight the network, and this is really true.
But today is also a day to be very proud because we are doing a lot in this area. I think this report also shows that we are on the right track: What we have been doing with the launch of the roadmap to fight organized crime and drug trafficking, and what we have been doing recently together with the Belgian
Presidency to launch the European Ports Alliance, with our cooperation that is increasing with Latin America, both on a national level from Belgium but also on European level, where we are also negotiating a new Status Agreement for Europol with several Latin American countries.
During my mandate, we have strengthened the mandate of Europol with new resources and new capabilities. We have new possibilities for the exchange of information and data; we have the Prüm agreed, the Prüm II; we have the e-Evidence agreed; we have a lot of steps that we have been taking. And I think it is necessary, but the good thing is that we are on the right track.
The Belgians are doing a lot to step up the fight against organized criminal groups and drug trafficking and I would like to congratulate you, Annelies and Paul, for all you are doing on national level, but also thank you for what you are doing on European level, putting this so high on the European agenda during your presidency, is very welcome.
But I think today is also really the day to thank and congratulate Catherine de Bolle and Europol. Because here we have good cooperation and all this data that has been sent from all the Member States, but also from 17 third countries.
This shows how trusted Europol is. And under your leadership, Catherine, this is really where Europol has been a more and more trusted partner.
And that is a necessary to be able to gather this data and to do the analysis and you are trusted because all the Member States but also third country partners realize that you give them this added value and that you can do things that they cannot do alone.
So, I would really like to congratulate you personally but also the whole team behind the report for this report which shows the big trust that is put into Europol from different stakeholders.
We will soon hear what's in the report I just want to say that, of course as also Annelies has just mentioned, this is not the end. We have started very intense work against organized criminal groups and drug trafficking, and we will continue to do so because it is necessary.
I looked into my mission letter that I got five years ago when I started this mandate, and I can say that I have really overdelivered when it comes to security and the fight against organized crime.
Why? Because it is necessary; because reality is here and organized criminal networks are here and they are strong, and they are very threatening. So, it is necessary that we step up and we are stepping up and we are delivering, so I am quite confident that based on the facts that we have in this report, we will be successful in the fight against these frightening criminal networks. Thank you.
