EMPACT has no staff and no headquarters. It works because thousands of people in national authorities and EU organisations take on clearly defined roles. Here is who they are — in plain language.
This is the point most people get wrong. EMPACT is not run from Brussels. EU Member States are the decision-makers: they choose the priorities, volunteer to lead the plans, and carry out the operations with their own police, customs and other services. EU institutions and agencies support, coordinate and fund — they do not command.
Countries outside the EU also take part, when the threat crosses into their territory or the route runs through it.
Every country appoints one. They are the hub: they make sure the different national authorities — police, customs, tax, borders, prosecutors — pull in the same direction, and they connect the country to everyone else’s coordinators. If you want to know how a country participates in EMPACT, this is the person who knows.
A country that volunteers to lead the shared plan for one crime priority for two years. The driver runs the meetings, keeps the plan on track and holds the whole thing together. It is a substantial commitment and a mark of expertise.
A country or EU agency that shares the load with the driver, often taking a specific slice of the work — for example the financial side of a plan while the driver handles the rest.
Each plan is made of individual actions, and each action has a leader. They make sure their action actually happens: the operation is organised, the partners show up, the money is managed and the results are reported. Co-leaders support them.
The experts — investigators, analysts, inspectors, prosecutors — who do the work. They help design the plans and then carry them out in their own countries.
Some objectives cut across every priority: seizing criminal money, training, working with non-EU countries. Each of these has a coordinator who makes sure it is genuinely taken up in every plan rather than quietly forgotten.
The EU’s law enforcement agency. Produces the threat assessment that starts every cycle, supplies analysis and operational support to investigations, hosts coordination centres during major operations, and is EMPACT’s operational backbone.
Where the Member States formally adopt the crime priorities and set the direction. The preparatory work happens in COSI, the standing committee on internal security cooperation.
Connects EMPACT to wider EU security policy, provides funding, and commissions the independent evaluation at the end of each cycle.
The EU’s agency for judicial cooperation. Makes sure investigations lead to prosecutions that hold up in court across several jurisdictions at once.
The EU agency for law enforcement training. Turns the skills gaps identified in the plans into actual courses for officers across Europe.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Central to the priorities that touch the EU’s external borders — migrant smuggling, trafficking, document fraud.
Banks, shipping and logistics companies, online platforms, manufacturers, universities and NGOs take part where they hold information or capabilities the authorities do not. Much of what happens in crimes like online fraud or counterfeiting is impossible without them.