Fourteen out of 27 European Union member states, among them Bulgaria, have yet to put rules in place allowing EU states to obtain the confiscation of criminal assets abroad, according to a European Commission (EC) report published on August 23 2010.

Last month, Italian authorities confiscated 60 million euro of mafia assets, and in the UK, 92.3 million pounds sterling was seized from an international crime ring with property in Dubai, the EC said.

"The seizures only claimed a fraction of the criminals' total wealth, which today can be easily transferred across borders. That is why the EU rules in force since 2006 allow member states to obtain the confiscation of criminal assets abroad."

However, the EC report showed that half of EU countries have yet to put these rules in place.

"This means that the assets – whether property, laundered money or stolen cars – of a criminal organisation prosecuted in France are safe in Slovakia or Bulgaria, for example," the EC said.

The EU rules should allow justice authorities to ask their counterparts in other member states to enforce confiscation orders, but the August 13 report highlighted that poor implementation and red tape, which often reflect a lack of trust in other country's justice systems, still make it hard to attack criminal assets.

"In a time of economic crisis, it is unfortunate that EU member states are letting billions of euro worth of convicted criminals' assets slip through the net. This happens even though governments agreed on confiscation measures four years ago," EC Vice-President Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, said. 

"The unwillingness of many member states to comply with Council Framework Decisions, to which they all have agreed, makes it clear – once again – why the EU’s area of justice needed the Lisbon Treaty. In future, we must have clearer rules, more consistent application and enforcement and – above all – trust between justice systems," she said.

"In the meantime, I call on member states to put the anti-crime rules in place so that the justice authorities can work together and effectively attack criminals' ill-gotten gains," Reding said.

Criminals take advantage of the open borders in the EU by moving stolen assets or illegal goods across borders. Confiscation is a valuable tool to stop this practice, the EC said.

Under EU rules, one EU country can send a confiscation order to another country where the subject of the order lives or has property or income. The other country directly carries out the confiscation, under its own national rules, without any further formality.

However, the EC report says that by February 2010 only 13 of the 27 EU countries have put the rules in place.

Although the deadline for implementing the measures was November 25 2008, seven countries told the Commission that the legislative process was still underway, while the other seven gave no information.

Those that said the process was still underway were Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Spain.

Those listed as having given "no notification" were Bulgaria, Estonia, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia, Sweden and the UK.

The 13 member states that have put the rules in place are already using them to fight crime, the EC said.

Justice authorities in the Netherlands, for example, have sent 121 confiscation orders to counterparts across the EU since the rules were in force, for assets worth a total of almost 20 million euro.

The current EU rules lists limited circumstances in which member states may refuse to carry out confiscation orders, such as violation of double jeopardy (being tried twice for the same crime) or very long delays between the facts and final conviction.

The EC report said that even where the rules are in place, confiscation orders are still not recognised automatically due to legal formalities, such as public hearings, which have been added to national rules in four countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Slovenia).

In March, Reding said that mutual trust is needed so that justice authorities recognise each others' decisions..

"The Commission has therefore made a priority of rolling out common minimum standards – starting with interpretation and translation rights for criminal suspects (already entering into force this autumn) and a letter of rights (proposed on July 20).