Grande-Marlaska announces that Cádiz will host the next summit of the Coalition against Organised Crime

The Minister for Home Affairs, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, at the EU Council of Home Affairs Ministers held in Brussels

On 14 February, the city of Cadiz will host the fourth summit of the Coalition against Organised Crime, a group created in Brussels in 2021 that brings together the heads of home affairs and justice ministries of Spain, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden with the aim of strengthening cooperation in the fight against serious crime and drug trafficking.

The Minister for Home Affairs, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, made the announcement this Thursday in Brussels, within the framework of the Council of Home Affairs Ministers. The Cadiz summit will be the Coalition's fourth, following Amsterdam (2022), Antwerp (2023) and Hamburg (2024).

The minister extended the invitation to his coalition counterparts and to the new European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration, Magnus Brunner, during a working dinner held yesterday in Brussels, where he presented the results of the Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar, launched in 2018, "which has managed to involve and combine the efforts of the judicial and police authorities and all the administrations," he said.

The minister insisted on the need to strengthen transnational cooperation against organised crime, "not only within the European Union, but also by sharing efforts with other regions affected by the same scourge." In this sense, Grande-Marlaska pointed to Spain as "the bridge that promotes collaboration and mutual understanding" between Latin America and North Africa, "priority regions for the EU due to the common challenges we share," he said.

National Implementation Plan for the Migration and Asylum Pact

Before the plenary session of the Council, Grande-Marlaska also confirmed that Spain had yesterday afternoon submitted the National Implementation Plan for the European Migration and Asylum Pact - which will enter fully into force in June 2026 - to the European Commission.

During the Council of Ministers, Grande-Marlaska also asked EU Member States for "flexibility" in order to move forwards with the regulation against online child sexual abuse and to begin negotiations with the European Parliament "as soon as possible."

The Minister for Home Affairs described the approval of a new "proportionate and balanced" legal framework that allows minors to be protected and criminals prosecuted, "while also guaranteeing respect for fundamental rights", as "crucial and urgent".

Grande-Marlaska thanked the Hungarian presidency for its efforts to push for the approval of the text, which was one of the priorities in Home Affairs of the Spanish six-month presidency "and continues to be so today," he stressed in his speech. "We need a clear European legal basis to prevent and prosecute these heinous crimes, limiting all the loopholes and opportunities that the digital world offers for criminal action," he added.

Non official translation