The agreement was signed by Interior minister Tonio Borg and Europol director Jurgen Storbeck at the Auberge d’Aragon yesterday.

Europol is the European Union law enforcement organisation that handles criminal intelligence to improve cooperation between the authorities of member states in preventing and fighting international organised crime. Its mission is to make a significant contribution to the EU’s law enforcement action against organised crime with an emphasis on targeting criminal organisations.

Its establishment was agreed during negotiations over the Maastricht Treaty in February 1992. Based in The Hague, Europol began operations in January 1994 in the form of the Europol Drugs Unit.

Progressively other types of criminality were added to its portfolio and in January 2002 its mandate was extended to deal with serious international crime including illicit drug trafficking, illegal immigration networks, terrorism, illicit vehicle trafficking, trafficking in human beings, child pornography, forgery of money, money laundering and financial and cyber crimes.

Speaking during the signing of the agreement, Dr Borg said the move will undoubtedly help Malta fight organised crime, especially bearing in mind that our islands will become the southern frontier of the EU after 1 May.

“The signing of the agreement does not prejudice or affect any other mutual legal assistance treaty, law enforcement relationship or any agreement or arrangement for the exchange of information between Malta and EU states already in place,” said Dr Borg.

“In fact during the past year”, he added, “Malta has been very active and has concluded and signed a number of bilateral agreements of cooperation against organised crime with various European and other countries.”

The agreement with Europol, Dr Borg continued, will help Malta by facilitating the exchange of information between member states, by providing operational analysis, generating reports and crime analysis and providing expertise and technical support for Maltese investigators.

Concluding, Dr Borg said: “This agreement will ensure that Malta will benefit from an exchange of specialist knowledge, information on crime prevention methods and from training activities.”