The challenges to international security have evolved since the attacks of 2001. While terrorism and armed conflicts are among the major concerns of international society, other threats such as organized crime in all its manifestations have been incorporated into the international security agendas. The process of globalization has conditioned the evolution of criminal organizations, the current characteristics of which are determined by technological adaptation, the execution of operations that are increasingly complex and the formation of flexible structures that make their detection difficult. Similarly, the criminal manifestations, such as drug trafficking, cybercrime, trafficking in human beings or the trafficking of arms, have evolved to adapt themselves to the environment in which they are developed. In this sense, organized crime in the European Union does not respond to a single typology, but traditional gangs are joined by others that incorporate new technologies and act in a network, giving them greater invisibility and the ability to overcome geographical limits. To address these threats, the European Union (EU) has adopted certain prevention measures, but it has also focused on increasing response and reaction capabilities, in which the cooperative instruments and tools of solidarity, the involvement of all EU institutions and the interdependence between internal and external security are fundamental pillars for the adoption of a European security model capable of facing the risks and threats of the new century.