ABSTRACT
The security of modern society is vulnerable to a range of direct threats, such as serious and organised crime and terrorism. The spill over of technological progress and facilitated cross-border mobility of recent decades has resulted not only in benefits to society, but also in the movement of criminality into virtual space and cross-border dimensions. Information exchange takes place within the limits of national law of the hosting country and of the competence of the liaison officer established by its national law. Europol is comprehensively regulated by European Union (EU) legislation, with a quite precise definition of purpose of information exchange between Europol and Member States. The analysis carried out has revealed that the EU pool of information exchange mechanisms is to some extent fragmented and incoherent. The Swedish Initiative that sets out to be a flagship of the implementation of the principle of availability, in the end merely has added value by the establishment of deadlines for reply.
