1. ARIEC/PAALCO

In 2017, the District Regional Information & Expertise Centres (ARIEC/PAALCO) kicked-off in Belgium. These are three-person cells that consist of a criminologist coordinator, a lawyer and an information broker. There are centres in Antwerp, Limburg and Namur. An evaluation on the work of the centres still needs to be carried out.

The centres raise awareness among local authorities to deal with organised crime in their administration and they support the local authorities with legal expertise and with methods that have proven success. They also share knowledge regarding good practices of administrative approach initiatives and ensure that supra-local phenomena that are spread over several municipalities are followed up. The administrative approach can be used preventively, for example by applying the police regulations.

The tasks of an ARIEC/PAALCO consists of:

  • raising awareness of administrative approaches through various initiatives
  • supporting the local authorities and police
  • exchange of information and knowledge between different partners
  • developing expertise
  • developing partnerships and networks
  1. EURIEC

Serious and organised crime does not stop at borders. Therefore, to fight it, a cross-border pilot project on the administrative approach, financed by the European Commission, was set up: a Euregional information and expertise centre (EURIEC) for the administrative approach to organised crime. The centre must ensure better cooperation and faster information exchange mainly on an administrative level between Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands. This is in addition to the existing cooperation between the police and the Public Prosecution Service across the borders.

The main goal is to give the administrative authorities in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine border region more rapid opportunities to tackle criminals together,  by sharing knowledge and information. In addition, the centre can help prevent criminals in the other country from continuing their criminal activities undisturbed.

The establishment of the EURIEC is a direct consequence of the Benelux cooperation in the field of the administrative approach. In 2018 the Dutch Minister of Justice and Security, Ferdinand Grapperhaus, stated: “We are indebted to the Benelux working group on administrative approach, which suggested this pilot in its Tackling Crime Together report. That report mainly addressed the question of how the Benelux and Germany can work together as well as possible in tackling so-called 'outlaw motorcycle gangs'. The European Council and the European Commission embraced the idea for a test. (...) partners from the Benelux and Germany, who have questions regarding criminals operating across the borders can come to this centre to solve their problems.”

The European Union has made 1 million euros available for the project. The project is scientifically supervised by the universities of Leuven, Maastricht and Cologne and was initially designed for 2 years starting in September 2019. Ideally, the basis for legislative changes should then have been laid in all three countries.

3. V-Bar 

The objective is to boost operational cooperation between EU law enforcement authorities and other public and private stakeholders in the field of disrupting and preventing organised vehicle crime committed by mobile organised crime groups. Hence, V BAR seeks to boost investigations, facilitate detection of organised vehicle crime and communication between law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders, and develop expertise and strategic analysis of organised vehicle crime. There will be 2 major outputs: 6 national barrier models on organised vehicle crime combined in a study report, and a handbook on a European barrier model on organised vehicle crime.

This project has ended in 2023.