Defining Organised Crime in the EU: the Limits of European Criminal Law in the Area of "Freedom, Security and Justice".

The fight against organised crime has been at the forefront of the EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) agenda, as evidenced by the two
Action Plans to fight organised crime in 1997 and 2000 and the 1999 Tampere Conclusions.  A central element in this context is the criminalisation of participation in a criminal organisation. Defining organised crime activities and treating them as criminal offences is an important signal of the focus of criminal justice policy on combating this phenomenon. It is also an essential task in order to define and clarify the mandate of EU criminal justice bodies such as Europol and Eurojust (combating organised crime is a central task to both). However, defining and criminalising organised crime is a legally complex task, as it is difficult to translate into a legal norm providing a sufficient degree of legal certainty and precision the multifarious activities of organised criminals.

This article analyses the third pillar Joint Action ‘on making it a criminal offence to participate in a criminal organisation to participate in a criminal organisation in the European Union’ (Joint Action 98/733/JHA, OJ L351, 29 December 1998, p.1).

Journal/Publisher: European Law Review, vol. 26

Publication type: Article

Number of pages/Page range: 565-581

Language/s (content): English

Date of publication: 01-12-01

Personal data

Full name Valsamis MITSILEGAS

Current occupation Coordinator

University/Institution Queen Mary University

Address Mile End Road 339

Postal code E1 4NS

Country United Kingdom

Telephone +44(0) 2078825132

Fax +44(0)2089818733

Email v.mitsilegas@qmul.ac.uk