An
International Conference "European Cooperation for Prevention and
Fight against Organized Crime" was held in Bucharest, Romania, on
June 26-27, 2001, organized by the Austrian-French Center
for Economic Approximation in Europe.
The Austrian-French Center for Economic
Accession in Europe is an interstate organization, founded jointly
by the Governments of Austria and France. Its objective is to
support the process of European Union enlargement towards the new
Central and East European (CEE) democracies and its activities are
focused on the issues of European cooperation and "acquis
communautaire" in the field of justice and home affairs.
The main issues discussed at the Conference
were:
- Old
and new forms of organized crime within the framework of the
European Union and the CEE countries - drugs and weapons
trafficking, terrorism, etc.
- Money laundering and the means for
its detection by the countries concerned as well as by the
international organizations;
- Corruption - new dimensions and new
forms, corruption in international transactions, political
corruption;
- Prevention and fight against
organized crime on national level - Austria, France, CEE
countries;
- Prevention and fight against
organized crime on European Union level - the role of the Council
and the Commission, organization, objectives and results of
Europol, the role of the Court of the European Communities, future
measures;
- Prevention and fight against
organized crime on global level - the role of OECD, different forms
of international cooperation.
The
Conference was attended by representatives of state institutions
and non-governmental organizations from Austria, France and Central
and East European countries as well as representatives of the European Commission, the Council of Europe, OECD, UN, etc. The
anticorruption Coalition 2000 , to which CSD serves as
Secretariat, was represented by its experts Dr. Maria Yordanova,
Head of CSD Law Program, Dr. Emil Tsenkov, CSD senior fellow, and
Mr. Ivaylo Angelov, expert.
During the Conference the achievements made in
respect of the above stated main issues were evaluated and measures
for closer European cooperation in this field were outlined.
See the Program of
the Conference
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