Press Release: Fighting organised crime in the Balkans

Justice and Home Affairs Ministers from the EU Member States, Accession countries and the Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro) met in Brussels on 28 November 2003 to address the fight against organised crime and illegal cross-border activities, which remain major obstacles to political, social and economic development in the Western Balkans. Some progress has been made since the London Conference on organised crime in November 2002 but it is now time for the countries in the region to improve their record on implementing measures to fight these phenomena, fulfilling the commitments made at the Thessaloniki Summit in June 2003.