What is EUROPOL?
• It means European Police Office or Europol
• Europol is the European Union’s criminal intelligence
agency. It became fully operational on 1 July 1999.
• Hague, Netherlands
• They support the 27 EU Member States in their fight
against terrorism, cybercrime and other serious and
organized forms of crime. They also work with many
non-EU partner states and international
organizations.
• Its closest partners are the law enforcement
agencies in the Member States of the European
Union (EU), each of which has a designated Europol
National Unit (ENU) that serves as the liaison
between the authorities in that country and
Europol.
What is the aim of Europol?
• Europol’s aim to improve the effectiveness and co-
operation between the competent authorities of
the member states primarily by sharing and
pooling intelligence to prevent and combat serious
international organized crime. Its mission is to
make a significant contribution to the European
Union’s law enforcement efforts targeting
organized crime.
What is the mission of Europol?
• The mission of Europol is to make a significant
contribution to the European Union’s law
enforcement action against organized crime and
terrorism with an emphasis on targeting criminal
organizations.
How does Europol Assist Member States
Investigations?
Europol supports the law enforcement activities
of the member states by:
• Facilitating the exchange of information between
Europol and Europol Liaison Officers (ELO’s) are
seconded the Europol by the Members States as
representatives of their national law enforcement
agencies.
• Providing operational analysis and support to
Member States operations;
• Providing expertise and technical support for
investigations and operations carried out within the
EU, under the supervision and the legal
responsibility of the Member States;
• Generating strategic reports (e.g. threat assessment)
and crime analysis on the basis of information and
intelligence supplied by Member States or gathered
from other sources.
In general, there are two types of cooperation
agreement that Europol can enter into with states and
other entities outside the EU: strategic and operational
agreements.
While both types of agreement are aimed at
enhancing cooperation between Europol and the
country concerned, there is one major difference:
strategic agreements are limited to the exchange of
general intelligence as well as strategic and technical
information, whereas operational agreements allow for
the exchange of information, including personal data.
Does Europol only act on request?
• Yes, Europol only acts on request at present. However, the
Protocol of the 28 November 2002 amending the Europol
convention, allows Europol to request the competent
authorities of the Member States to investigate. Article 3 b) of
the Protocol states that “Member States should be deal with
any request from Europol to initiate, conduct or co-ordinate
investigations in specific cases and should give such requests
due consideration. Europol should be informed whether the
requested investigation will be initiated”.
History of Europol
The European Police Office, or Europol for short,
was established in the Maastricht Treaty on European
Union of 7 February 1992, as a response to problems
of European trans-national crime. Europol was the
first attempt at establishing a transnational policing
organization to handle cross-border policing.
The first manifestation of the Europol project,
the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU) started operation on 3
January 1994. The EDU initially focused solely on the
fight against drugs within the European Union. This
mandate was later extended after the Essen summit
meeting in December 1994 to “prevent and combat
unlawful drug trafficking in nuclear and radioactive
substances, illegal money laundering, immigrant
smuggling, trade in human beings and motor vehicle
theft”
UNIQUE SERVICES
• support centre for law enforcement operations;
• hub for information on criminal activities;
• centre for law enforcement expertise.
EUROPOL IN NUMBERS
• More than 1000 staff
• 220 Europol Liaison Officers
• Around 100 crime analysts
• Supporting over 40,000 international
investigations each year
MANDATE
Europol supports law enforcement
authorities throughout the EU on crime fighting
activities in all its mandated areas.
These activities focus on:
• illicit drugs
• trafficking in human beings
• facilitated illegal immigration
• cybercrime
• intellectual property crime
These activities focus on:
• euro counterfeiting
• VAT fraud
• money laundering and asset tracing
• mobile organized-crime groups
• outlawing motorcycle gangs
• terrorism
MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL
Europol is accountable at the EU level to the Council
of Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs.
The Council is responsible for the main control and
guidance of Europol. It appoints the Executive Director
and the Deputy Directors, and approves Europol’s
budget (which is part of the general budget of the EU),
together with the European Parliament. It also can
adopt, together with the European Parliament,
regulations related to Europol’s work. Each year the
Council forwards a special report to the European
Parliament on the work of Europol.
Organizational Structure
Europol is headed by an Executive Director,
who is Europol’s legal representative and is
appointed by the Council of the European
Union. Europol’s current Executive Director
is Catherine De Bolle, who assumed the post in
May 2018.
She is assisted by three Deputy
Executive Directors:
• Wil van Gemert, Operations Directorate
• Oldrich Martinu, Governance Directorate
• Luis de Eusebio Ramos, Capabilities Directorate
In its day-to-day operations, Europol is
headed by a Executive Director, who is
appointed by a unanimous decision of the
Council of Ministers for Justice and Home
Affairs, after the Council has obtained the
opinion of the Management Board.
The Executive Director, who is appointed for a
four-year term, with the possibility of a second, is
responsible for:
• overseeing the administration of Europol
• seeing to the performance of tasks assigned to
Europol
• overseeing the management of personnel
• any other tasks consigned to him by
the regulation or by the Management Board.
