Region: EU criminal statute unevenly implemented

By Clive Leviev-Sawyer

For the Sofia Echo

Fourteen out of 27 European Union member states - including Bulgaria and Slovakia - have yet to put rules into place allowing other EU states to confiscate criminal assets abroad, according to a European Commission (EC) report published Aug. 23, and others including the Czech Republic continue to slow the process with unnecessary bureaucracy.

Last month, Italian authorities confiscated 60 million euros in mafia assets, and in the United Kingdom, E92.3 million was seized from an international crime ring with property in Dubai, the EC said.

"The seizures only claimed a fraction of the criminals' total wealth, which today can be easily transferred across borders. That is why the EU rules in force since 2006 allow member states to obtain the confiscation of criminal assets abroad."

However, the EC report showed that half of EU countries have yet to put these rules in place.

"This means that the assets - whether property, laundered money or stolen cars - of a criminal organization prosecuted in France are safe in Slovakia or Bulgaria, for example," the EC said.

The EU rules should allow justice authorities to ask their counterparts in other member states to enforce confiscation orders, but the Aug. 13 report highlighted that poor implementation and red tape, which often reflect a lack of trust in other countries' justice systems, still make it hard to attack criminal assets.

"In a time of economic crisis, it is unfortunate that EU member states are letting billions of euros worth of convicted criminals' assets slip through the net," said Viviane Reding, EU commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship. "This happens even though governments agreed on confiscation measures four years ago."

"The unwillingness of many member states to comply with Council Framework Decisions, to which they all have agreed, makes it clear, once again, why the EU's area of justice needed the Lisbon Treaty. In the future, we must have clearer rules, more consistent application and enforcement and, above all, trust between justice systems," she added.

Criminals take advantage of the open borders in the EU by moving stolen assets or illegal goods across borders. Confiscation is a valuable tool to stop this practice, the EC said.

Under EU rules, one EU country can send a confiscation order to another country where the subject of the order lives or has property or income. The other country directly carries out the confiscation, under its own national rules, without any further formality.

However, the EC report says that by February 2010, only 13 of the 27 EU countries had put the rules in place.

Although the deadline for implementing the measures was Nov. 25, 2008, seven countries told the EC that the legislative process was still under way, while the other seven gave no information.

Those that said the process was still under way were Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Spain. Those listed as having given "no notification" were Bulgaria, Estonia, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The 13 member states that have put the rules in place are already using them to fight crime, the EC said.

Authorities in the Netherlands, for example, have sent 121 confiscation orders to counterparts across the EU since the rules were in force, for assets worth a total of almost 20 million euros.

The current EU rules list limited circumstances in which member states may refuse to carry out confiscation orders, such as the violation of the double jeopardy rule (being tried twice for the same crime) or very long delays between the facts and final conviction.

The EC report said that even where the rules are in place, confiscation orders are still not recognized automatically due to legal formalities, such as public hearings, which have been added to national rules in four countries: Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Slovenia.

Clive Leviev-Sawyer can be reached at news@praguepost.com