site.bta Justice Minister Takes Part in Justice and Home Affairs Council Meeting in Brussels

Bulgaria’s Justice Minister Georgi Georgiev took part in the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council held on Tuesday in Brussels, the Justice Ministry reported. During the meeting, EU justice ministers agreed that drug trafficking remains the biggest security threat to Europe.

Georgiev said that the emerging trend of recruiting minors to commit offences, given that they bear no criminal liability, was one of the discussion’s topics. “The modernization of the law on which we are working must provide an adequate response to new patterns of criminal activity,” he added.

The Minister also held talks with European Commissioner for Justice Michael McGrath on developing a new EU strategy to combat drug trafficking and organized crime, which will include cooperation with third countries. Drug trafficking is expected to remain a top-tier threat in the coming years. For this reason, the fight against it is among the central priorities of the new ProtectEU Internal Security Strategy and will continue beyond 2025.

The participants reached a common position that organized crime, fuelled by vast profits from narcotics, particularly record quantities of cocaine arriving from South America, is increasingly resorting to violence, corruption, infiltration of the legitimate economy and the recruitment of minors. This undermines the rule of law and threatens the foundations of European democracies.

The Ministers agreed that Europe will not tolerate its ports, streets or institutions being turned into a narcotics marketplace for criminal networks, the ministry’s statement said.