(20) To improve Europol’s effectiveness in providing accurate crime analyses to the Member States’ law enforcement authorities, it should use new technologies to process data.

Europol facilitates the exchange of information between Member States’ law enforcement authorities and provides criminal analysis to help national police forces carry out cross border investigations.

28. Points out that borders are not an obstacle to organised crime; considers it necessary, therefore, for the external dimension of organised crime to be integrated into the framework of Europe's effort to combat the phenomenon; notes that it is important, to that end, to involve more deeply the European External Action Service and the Joint Situation Centre (SitCen); calls on the Commission to continue to hone the effectiveness of and regularly update agreements on judicial and investigative cooperation with non-EU countries aimed at combating cross-border organised crime; calls, furthermore, for due account to be taken when drafting such agreements of the specific threats that organised crime in the individual countries poses to the ...[+++]EU's internal and external security; calls on Europol to produce more frequent and more detailed analyses of non-European criminal organisations whose activities have a direct or indirect impact on the European Union; considers it essential to continue and step up the efforts being made by the EU and the international institutions in the Balkans, particularly in connection with action to combat organised crime; calls on the Commission, in collaboration with Europol, to develop a joint project with Interpol to support the establishment and implementation of a regional system for the exchange of police and judicial information with West Africa, while making available to the Economic Community of West African States the necessary know-how and resources, not least in the field of training and follow-up;

(10) with reference to the 2002 annual report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, in particular the supply reduction measures, among which it is a priority for Member States to combat organised drug trafficking through the improvement of database systems and crime analysis techniques, together with increased development of international cooperation.

collect and analyse information on existing crime (including organised crime) prevention activities, the evaluation thereof and the analysis of best practices, and collect and analyse existing data on criminality and on its development in the Member States, in order to contribute to consideration of future national and European decisions.

* To promote a coordinated approach focused on cross-border criminality in the EU, based, inter alia, on the Europol organized crime analyses.