The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) was among the leading regional organizations participating at the Sixth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, held in Vienna on 15-19 October 2012.
PAM was represented by Hon. Angela Napoli (Italy), Rapporteur on Organised Crime within the Assembly’s 1st Standing Committee on Political and Security-related Cooperation.
Hon. Napoli, in her intervention, highlighted the challenges posed by transnational organised crime to all countries of the Mediterranean region. “The Mediterranean has always been a crucial crossroads, linking the East-West and the North-South axes, and one of the areas most strategically involved in trade flows of all kinds”, Hon. Napoli said. She added that against this background, criminal organisations have huge opportunities to expand their activities, particularly involving drugs, arms, toxic waste as well as trafficking in human beings and smuggling of migrants. “Its transnational nature calls for solutions based on agreements between all the countries involved and PAM is an organisation which enables member parliaments to cooperate in order to jointly identify appropriate countermeasures to combat these crimes” the PAM Rapportuer added.
The PAM working group on Organized Crime, has dealt with the issue from many perspectives, including the dangerous links between terrorism and criminal groups in the Mediterranean. Also high on the agenda is illegal immigration, because organized crime has been exploiting to its own advantage social and political instability in North Africa, especially following the Arab Spring.
Hon. Napoli referred to her latest Report and Resolution on “Eco-Mafias and their impact on the Mediterranean”, which was unanimously adopted by the Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, held in Malta on 12-13 October, 2012. This is one of the sectors of transnational organised crime with the highest profits and the dumping of toxic and radioactive waste in the Mediterranean is increasingly serious. “Illegal waste trafficking often involves legally constituted companies, which appear to be above suspicion, such as import/export, financial service firms and those handling the recycling of metals, sometimes with the support of governments where democracy is most fragile”, Hon. Napoli maintained.
In her concluding remarks, Hon. Napoli appealed to governments and parliaments, and not only those in the Mediterranean, to continue developing operational and normative instruments to support the fight against transnational organised crime, as it is an evil which cuts across all countries, without distinction.