Call for Member-State help in policing Albanian drug crime

By David Cronin

Date: 16/10/03

ITALY'S European Union presidency has recommended that police from the member states should be posted in Albania, as part of a new onslaught on drug-related crime in the western Balkan country.

Rome's initiative - which has been tabled before the Council of Ministers' working party on drugs - is in response to a big increase in trafficking of narcotics between Albania and member states.

A paper prepared by Silvio Berlusconi's government laments that "the amounts of cannabis seized in Italy from Albanian nationals have increased from quantities measured in grammes in 1991 to quantities now measured in tonnes".

While this "soft" drug is grown in Albania itself, gangs are also implicated in trading "hard" drugs such as heroin and cocaine, cultivated outside the country.

"All over Europe, criminal organizations engaged in drug trafficking are constantly found to include Albanian members," the paper states.

Under the Italian plan, EU governments would send intelligence officers from their own country to Tirana.

These would initially be based in member states' embassies but would "then extend their presence to other countries of the Balkan area, with the aim of increasing the efficiency of the anti-drug trafficking and abuse intelligence effort through a careful monitoring activity and an exchange of information with the competent national authorities".

The initiative follows a decision by EU justice ministers last February, enabling "liaison officers" to be sent to countries outside the Union to help prevent or probe organized crime.

The Italians suggest that EU police agency Europol, the European Commission and the Albanian authorities would be appraised of the officers' activities.

Member state diplomats say that discussion on the recommendation is still at a preliminary phase.