The evolution of European Union criminal law (1957-2012)

“organised crime” has also itself shown to be adaptable to different policy priorities and
hence suitable as a political-legal justification when needed. As Levi notes
“Legal definitions of organized crime, like other social labels such as ‘anti-social
behaviour’, are based around the measures that legislators want to take against evils,
both activities and ‘sorts of people’, especially combinations of people.” 345
This was relevant especially as the competency of the EU to act in many of these
domains was not clear-cut. Indeed, although many of the crimes in relation to which the
EU sought to act upon could be potentially integrated under the very wide concept of
“serious international crime” used by Article K.1 of the TEU(M), the link between the
wording of the Treaty and many measures adopted was rather feeble and particularly
where harmonisation measures were concerned, which clearly went beyond the level of
cooperation envisaged by the TEU(M).
3.1.1. The ancillary use of organised crime as a legal concept
The use of organised crime as an umbrella legal concept to allow for intervention in
domains in which the EU’s competence was not necessarily clear, was further perceived
in drugs and drug trafficking matters in relation to which Article K.1 specifically
recognised the EU’s competence. Drug trafficking is a traditional field of organised
crime and the links between the two cannot be easily overlooked. 346 Thus, one would
expect that if the rationale of the fight against organised crime is as wide as previously
described, drug trafficking would certainly be part of it. However this is not necessarily
so – or at least – this is not acknowledged as such by the preambles of the legal
measures in this regard. Indeed, the Joint Actions on drug trafficking, 347 on new
synthetic drugs and on chemical profiling of drugs, 348 for example, did not mention
organised crime in their preambles or bodies, in clear contrast with the large majority of
measures described earlier. Article K.1 however particularly mentioned drug addiction
345 M. Levi, “Organized Crime and Terrorism”, in M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner, The
Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 4 th Edition (Oxford:OUP, 2007) 771, 779-780.
346 M. Levi, “Organized Crime and Terrorism”, ibid., 777; See also the UK Serious Organised
Crime Agency who, in its website, points out that drug trafficking is the most damaging sector of
organised crime in the UK, at http://www.soca.gov.uk/threats/, last visited on May 27, 2012.
347 Joint Action 96/750/JHA of 17 Dece,ber 1996 adopted by the Council on the basis of Article
K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning the approximation of the laws and practices of
the Member States of the European Union to combat drug and to prevent and combat illegal drug
trafficking, OJ L 342/6 [1996].
348 Joint Action 96/699/JHA, supra note 302; Joint Action 97/396/JHA of 16 June 1997 adopted
by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on the European Union, concerning the
information exchange, risk assessment and the control of new synthetic drugs, OJ L 167/1
[1997].
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