ABSTRACT
The idea that the EU should develop policies and operational capabilities to combat international organised crime remains contentious. This is because when the European Community (the EU’s forerunner) was created in 1957, the emphasis was on the creation of a common market. Economics were paramount. Security and defence were seen as the proper reserve of sovereign national governments and NATO. Until the mid-1980s, this view persisted and came to be seen as the ‘security taboo’. The decision to realise a Single European Market by the end of 1992, however, meant the security taboo had to be reassessed. Creating the single market required the removal of all internal barriers – physical, fiscal and technical – to trade by making a reality of the ‘four freedoms’, that is, the freedoms of movement of persons, services, goods and capital. This was to be complemented by a tightening and reinforcement of the so-called ‘external frontier’ – that is, the geographical perimeter around the territory of the EU.
