The Council of Justice and Interior Affairs of the European Union passed in the reunion of the 18 may 2017 the priorities of the EU in the fight against international organised and serious crime from 2018 to 2021.
These priorities are to fight and hinder criminal activity (organised in most cases) in ten specific criminal areas:
- Cybercrime, including cyber-attacks, paedophilia and payments made using duplicates or other fraudulent methods.
- Trafficking and production of drugs and narcotic drugs, with a series of actions against the traffic of cannabis, cocaine and heroin; internal distribution networks in the EU, and the production of synthetic drugs and new psychoactive drugs.
- Organised gangs which facilitate illegal immigration.
- Organised crime against property, especially when it is very mobile around the EU.
- The traffic of human beings for exploitation purposes, whether sexual or as labour, and the traffic of minors.
- Fraud involving special taxes or intracommunity fraud.
- Traffic, distribution and illegal use of weapons.
- Crime against the environment.
- Criminal financial operations and money laundering, to recover assets.
- Document fraud.
Although terrorism is not an explicit part of any of these priorities, it is stated that threats due to links with some groups of organised crime must be taken into consideration.
These priorities are executed via long-term strategies and operational plans of action, one or more in accordance with each priority, and carried out annually. The Permanent Committee of Interior Security must apply follow-up measures in accordance with each of these priorities. Mechanisms of independent assessment and assessment of results of the different plans of action are also predicted. Also, there is the possibility that in 2019 Europol will present a provisional report to the Council about new threats which may affect these priorities.
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