Organised Crime: A Catalyst in the Europeanisation of National Police and Prosecution Agencies?

This volume explores to what extent EU instruments have had an influence on the structure and organisation of law enforcement agencies - in particular the police forces - and the public prosecution agencies. The calls for increased coordination of the control of transnational organised crime have strongly contributed to the establishment of EU institutions such as OLAF and Europol, shortly to be joined by Eurojust and the European Police College. These forms of institutionalisation at the European level have been accompanied by incentives for EU Member States to adapt their national criminal justice organisations. This study focuses in particular on the recommendations of the 1997 EU Action Plan on Organised Crime, which - among other instruments - demand from EU Member States that they establish national coordination units for the exchange of intelligence. Research was undertaken in all 15 EU Member States with the objective to make an inventory of the main rationales of reforms and changes in the national criminal justice organisations. One of the main findings throughout this comparative study is that although EU instruments have to some extent provided a regulatory incentive to introduce reforms, in most countries changes were driven by domestic considerations. Although substantial differentiation between the national criminal justice organisations continues to exist, increased information-exchange about transnational organised crime has consolidated mutual knowledge-building about the organisational and procedural aspects of police and prosecution agencies. The research that was undertaken for the purpose of this volume was financed by the European Commission Falcone Programme (98/FAL/145) and the Research Department of the Dutch Ministry of Justice (WODC).