Subject: Involvement of senior political figures in Portuguese paedophile rings

E-1976/03

Reply

(7 October 2003)

As a general point, the Council Framework Decision on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, on which political agreement was reached at the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on 14 and 15 October 2002, has not yet been evaluated.  Indeed, it cannot be formally adopted until the parliamentary procedure currently under way in one Member State has been concluded.  The Council nevertheless believes that that instrument, and other recently adopted mutual assistance instruments such as the European arrest warrant [1] or the Convention on Mutual Assistance of 29 May 2002 [2], and the extension of Europol's powers to cover child pornography [3] , provide effective tools to combat these kinds of crimes.  The preventive nature of the legal framework set in place, which ensures that none of these crimes goes unpunished in the European Union, cannot, however, totally guarantee that there will be no more such unfortunate cases of sexual exploitation of children.

As for this particular instance, the Council never comments on cases pending before the judicial authorities of the Member States, nor on the content of articles in the press.