The Parliament's new CRIM Committee holds its first ever public hearing with leading experts to debate the fight against organised crime in the European Union.

Anti-mafia committee debut

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/16045759/n001-120711-001-en_mf.srt

It's estimated that organised crime costs  the EU economy billions of euros annually.

But despite efforts  by the courts and the police,

less than 1% of the proceeds  of human trafficking, counterfeiting

and money laundering  are ever recovered.

With criminal gangs adopting  increasingly sophisticated methods

and Europe's open borders allowing for  the easy movement of goods and people,

to try and tackle a problem  that blights the lives of many.

The Organised Crime Committee,  CRIM, held a public hearing

with law enforcement experts  and EU authorities.

Its chair, Sonia Alfano,  has more motivation than most,

as her father was killed  by the mafia in 1993.

The objective is to present  to the European institutions

a plan against organised crime  in a single anti-mafia document.

We need to fight the organised crime  systems in Italy

and in the same way in England, Holland,  Spain, Germany and in other countries.

OLAF, the Commission's anti-fraud office,  told the committee

that counterfeiting is one  of the main problems they encounter.

Counterfeit cigarette trafficking  represents €10 billion for the EU alone.

OLAF is just one of the agencies  fighting organised crime,

including Europol, Interpol  and environmental crime authorities.

With such a sophisticated  and diverse opponent,

some MEPs felt that the agencies  should be working more closely.

There isn't so much inter-relationship  between the agencies yet

and that is one thing which this committee  could encourage at the very least.

If that happened and it was better joined up

then the impact on major criminals  would be much better.

CRIM's remit lasts until May 2013 but there  is already talk of this being extended.