Quotables

"Security and stability in South East Europe is challenged by organised crime, corruption, illegal migration, human trafficking and the unlawful trade in small arms. These activities have the potential to weaken governments. They are a ball and chain around the ankle of progress. And they tarnish the image of some parts of South East Europe. I acknowledge that a number of measures are being taken to address these challenges. But even more needs to be done. It is essential that the rule of law be strengthened. The police forces must be made more accountable and the judiciary must be seen to be both robust and independent. And border security must be improved."

"Clearly, NATO cannot do everything and clearly NATO cannot be everywhere but in a strategic way we can pick out times and we can pick our spots and we can make a difference. So does transformation that is ongoing needs to be well financed, needs to be adhere too, agreements need to be lived up to and we can in fact transform this alliance in such a way that in the 21st century it can make a great difference in our collective security. It can make a great difference by being more proactive, reactive and agile across the spectrum of operations."

The fight against this type of fraud (cigarette smuggling) is a shared responsibility. It requires urgent and streamlined action at all levels, i.e. from the Commission, the Member States and the neighbouring countries. I would therefore like to thank the Bulgarian Customs Agency and the Center for the Study of Democracy for having taken the initiative to organise this conference. It is very timely and I am convinced that it will contribute to strengthening our cooperation and building strong relationships to jointly tackle the problem of cigarette smuggling.

The crisis has put focus on the instability of the public sector. It is estimated that 120 billion euro are lost each year to corruption in the EU member states. If we talk about public procurement that indicator is 20-25% of the contracts signed. Cross-border cooperation is needed to fight crimes at EU and national level. The EU Anti Corruption package is a step forward.

I am glad that the workshop was a success and that the officers from Romania and Bulgaria found it useful in developing their skills to fight corruption and organised crime. Work such as this in an international arena continues to grow in importance and we consider it vital for successful operations, particularly in the area of corruption.

"I would like to congratulate the organisers of this event for their laborious effort that allowed them to gather here leading figures of the European legal practice to speak and discuss on such an important and modern-day issue as the risks and impacts that fraud and corruption create on public procurement all over our continent. … It is widely acknowledged that corruption has the natural power to continuously change its characteristics. Over the last few decades, its presence has increased in public administration becoming a source of serious and systematic loss to public budgets. And it is also true that few activities create greater temptations or offer more opportunities for bribery and extortion than public sector procurement."