To defeat crime locally, we must fight crime internationally

Almost four months to the day I return tomorrow to the Port of Antwerp at the invitation of Belgian Ministers Annelies Verlinden (Interior) and Vincent Van Quickenborne (Justice).

We will meet with a crimefighting coalition of Member States – including ministers Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius (Netherlands), Nancy Faeser (Germany) and Fernando Grande-Marlaska (Spain), EU agencies Europol and Eurojust and a United States representative – of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

My goal: to fight organised crime, which is as big a threat to our societies as terrorism.

My message to the Antwerp police and to the Belgian police: You are not alone. You have the European Union behind you.

The urgency to combat organised crime is clear in Antwerp, as is the need for concerted action. European ports are a crime scene, the major point of entry for the drugs that flood our continent.

These drugs fuel the gangland warfare that kills journalists, politicians, lawyers and innocent children caught in the crossfire, like Firdaous, an 11 year old girl who died in a shooting in Antwerp this year.

The scale and level of violence is increasing, as demonstrated by the torture chamber found in the Encrochat case, complete with dental chair, scalpels and pliers. In Sweden criminals used to shoot people in the leg as a warning. Now they shoot them straight in the head.

It’s unrealistic to expect police in Antwerp, Rotterdam or Hamburg to fight organised crime alone. To defeat crime locally, we must fight crime internationally.

Organised criminals are increasingly international and increasingly sophisticated. 180 nationalities are involved in organised crime in the EU. 70 per cent of crime groups are active in more than three Member States. Crime groups operate like multinational businesses with global supply lines spanning continents and oceans.

After my last visit to Antwerp I travelled to Ecuador and Colombia. We agreed to improve security of ports on both sides of the Atlantic, and to increase our police cooperation, to try to make sure drugs will never reach Europe in the first place.

Colombia has an agreement with Europol and an enhanced structure for cooperation is now under way. Negotiations with Ecuador for an agreement have started. We’ll also work more closely with Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and Brazil.

I visited Interpol last week, and it’s good the DEA will be in Antwerp tomorrow because we need the United States on board.

It takes a network, to fight a network. Tomorrow I will speak in Antwerp about joining forces at the European level and with our partners across the Atlantic, about improving police cooperation and information exchange, legal and technical access to digital evidence and the importance of fighting corruption and prevention.

One final note: we need to talk with the users of drugs.

You can’t deplore trafficking in the port of Antwerp, a shooting in the town of Antwerp, and then snort cocaine in a club in Antwerp and think these are not related.

In South America I saw traffickers destroy the rainforest to plant coca leaves, and pollute the environment with chemicals. I spoke with villagers in the very same room where criminals murdered their mayor because he refused to plant coca and dared to cultivate sustainable crops.

It’s time to realise that there’s no such thing as Fair Trade Cocaine.