The European Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová estimated 1,450 French are among some 5,000 to 6,000 European volunteers leaving Europe for Syria to join jihadists fighting against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, in an interview published today, Monday by Le Figaro
“In Europe, we believe departures for Syria to be about 5,000 or 6,000 people, including 1,450 in France,” said Ms Jourova who feared that these figures “are strongly under estimated.”
To prevent these departures, the European Commissioner intends to focus “more on prevention than punishment” because it “too late”. “For 2015, we identified a budget of € 2.5 million to provide training in the use of prison staff and probation as well as that of European Prosecutors,” she said.
It also argues for better cooperation between European police and judicial institutions. “We want to intensify the exchange of information between Europol and Eurojust,” she said. This exchange has become “systematic and automatic.” For this, it is considered that it is necessary that “joint investigation teams are created so that prosecutors and police officers from several EU countries can work together.”
The Commissioner supports the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor.”Initially, the European Public Prosecutor will be specialized in financial fraud in the EU budget only. Ultimately, we think that it could extend its prerogatives to cross border organized crime, such as the trafficking in human beings for example. “
